How long do orchids live?
 

Hi everyone,

I was curious about how long orchids can potentially live, whether in the wild or in cultivation. I've heard that they're "potentially immortal," but after a basic internet search I feel that that's probably not true. We know that some are a couple hundred years old, though.

I'm wondering, for those who are very experienced with and knowledgeable about orchids, what your thoughts are about this. What is the oldest orchid in your collection? Have you read anything in particular about orchid lifespans?

Just curious!

I am comfortable assuming that monopodial orchids have some finite life span - whatever that may be, but when you consider the fact that sympodial orchids can be divided and shared over and over again, "potential immortality" is not out of the question.

One might argue that clones carry on immortality, too...

I have an 11 year old Vanda sanderiana that gave me two keikis. When the youngest keiki bloomed last year, the mother started to lose its leaves and expire. I am left with two plants still attached to the mother but each produced many fat roots on each of their own.
My Cattleya Abe Kher is an heirloom from 1954 that I got seven pseudo bulbs in bloom from a wedding centerpiece five years ago....for every two new growths one old pseudo bulb dries up and dies....it blooms twice a year

As I understand it, you must see an orchid as you would a lawn of grass. An individual blade or tiller erupts from the base, grows, and replaces dead growth. One seedling of grass has the potential to become a single plant a mile across, but it rarely happens. What people think of as "an orchid" is onlt the leaf of a plant that could be much larger under the right conditions, but those perfect conditions are rare.

Its not clear to me what role telomeres play in plant longevity, cells generally dont seem to be able to divide forever.

This was my impression, too, after looking around. I'm not a scientist, though, and I haven't done *real* research, so I don't feel confident to speak about it. But I was under the impression that the dividing was subject to small errors of DNA, leading to degeneration over time.

Before I lost a substantial portion of my collection in a divorce, I had a plant that purportedly was division of a awarded primary hybrid from the 1800's.

The Paph. concolor in my collection right now is a piece of one I bought about 45 yrs ago.

Paphluvr, you have me beat! I have 3 Cattleya alliance plants that are mere youngsters by comparison. I have only had them 30 years.

I have plants going back to the 70's. And they probably originated decades before that.

It seems that plants that can be divided theoretically can live for many centuries or thousands of years. However, i did read that one of the 'oldest' living trees that spread by suckers, had lost the ability to produce viable seed through genetic changes over the centuries.

Now I cant find the reference so hopefully somebody can confirm or deny that, but anyway most of our plants will live as long as we let them...

Edit: the methusaleh tree has just had babies so the above reference appears to have been wrong.

Also apparently there is an 80,000 year old clonal colony of trees, so maybe plants can just keep dividing for a very very long time...

It depends on how you define the question. If the question is how long can plants live in an ideal world with no disease, natural disasters, fatal genetic mutations....etc, the answer is plants can live forever. In the real world, that doesn't happen. Old trees eventually get killed by disease or are uprooted. Most orchids don't live beyond 10 years because stuff happen. Hey, when the sun burns out in 5 billion years, all life on earth will be gone.....so, just depends how you want to look at it.