h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Quick thought-
Do trees have life spans? I man if the environmental factors were just right how long could the average tree live??

I guess that under perfect conditions a botanical organism, or part of it, may "live" indefinately for instance some succulents a have a mechanism by which they drop leaves which then grow into plantlets to aid reproduction, escentialy cloning, although the parent plant may die the offspring will survive in exactly the same way for as long as the environment is favourable.

I suppose that the same arguement could be used for plants that reproduce using runners. I was thinking mord of such trees like the Red Woods that seem to just keep adding rings until an environmental factor such as a forest fire kills them.

Well even sequoias/redwoods can be grown from tissue culture, and maybee even just plain cuttings.

Of course, if it lives a really long time, by definition it's not an "average tree"

if I remember right the oldest living organisms on the planet are a bunch of bristlecone pines somewhere cold in america.

i think you have a point there peet

Hello there Lintilla.
Like your page. Trees are pretty amazing things aren't they.
I know some have a limited life span - some start to die from the inside out when they exceed a certain size. But I'm sure I heard of some enormous trees somewhere which were at least 4k years old.
Personally, I find the size of trees amazing. Living organisms with the mass of hundreds of elephants. Probably. Don't know if dendrologists measure trees in 'elephants' but you get the idea.

An interesting aside - did you know that some individual patches of scrub grass are centuries old? As long as the right animals are grazing them (sheep or goats, as opposed to cattle), the cropping action stimulates growth enzymes at the base of each stalk, ensuring the stalk will continue to grow the following year! Even mechanically mowing some forms of grass can have the same effect. The act of excluding animals from an old pasture for two or three years will actually lead to the death of some ancient plants, but not before they have gone to seed... The oldest parents around, methinks...

Could a Yak be classified as the right type of animal?

Gnus are good animals. not the right animals maybee but good anyway.

It really depends on how far down the shoot they bite - sheep don't kill the plant, cattle do! I don't know which category the Yak falls in to...

There must be a yak forum around here.
I've got one of those self-cloning succulents, incidentally. A mexican-hat plant. As house plants go it's more boring than cacti. All it does is grow upwards and create identical babies. They drop off the edge of its leaves and each one looks like the parent - probably quite fractal. But not very interesting.

Yeah, trees have life-spans. Very lonnnng ones. Unless they get cut down. Well, they might live on as paper. Hmm. I don't know much about how trees live their live's. Hmm.

Mexican Hat Plant ?

Kindo' looks like a small branching tree with nodes on the end of each leaf, leaves cylindrical mottled red/brown/grey/blue.

I think it's a bryophylum/Kalanchoe

It has a single central stem about five or six feet tall now, though it's bent over 'cos I haven't got a long enough cane for it, and it's bald up to about half way as it leaves have dropped off as it grows. The upper half has leaves arranged in pairs - one at 3.00 o'clock one at 9.00 o'clock, then the next pair at 12.00 o'clock and 6.00 o'clock, and so on. (Yeah?)
Babies form all along the edges of the leaves (green, occasionally mottled browny-red), and have little stringy roots which hang. If they don't get knocked off they seem to grow in mid-air quite happily for ages.
Are you a botanist by any chance Phord?

Sorry I haven't said much, talking about trees was making me a bit guilty about what happened at the cafe...but anyways.....
actually i work in a greenhouse, although i do more work w/ petunia varieties than anything exotic.

Not a botanist as such just rather sad If you ever need gardening tips and someone to fix your PC then i'm yer man. are the leaves triangular or elongated?

Do you have any of those bowls of petunias that suddenly materialise for no apparant reason and then fall a long, long way ?

the triangular triangular ones are fairly popular, the tubular leaved ones I have never seen out side of my green house and C&S books.

u mean the ones that think, "oh no not again" as they fall?

Haven't mastered the materializing petunias yet but if you could, than catch them as they fell, and sell them, it would save time in the planting/growing process!