Every so often I am asked how long will such and such plant or tree are likely to live for?
A good question but a difficult one to answer.
Some plants which are called annuals will germinate, grow, flower and produce seeds then die. Most vegetables and bedding plants fall into this category and are often referred to as seasonal.
Then there are the biennial plants which is a flowering plant that takes two years to complete its biological life cycle. In the first year the plant grows leaves, stems, and roots (vegetative structures), then it enters a period of dormancy over the colder months. Usually the stem remains very short and the leaves are low to the ground, forming a rosette. Many biennials require a cold treatment, or vernalization, before they will flower. During the next spring or summer, the stem of the biennial plant elongates greatly, or "bolts". The plant then flowers, producing fruits and seeds before it finally dies. There are far fewer biennials than either perennial plants or annual plants.
A perennial plant or perennial (Latin per, "through", annus, "year") is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants. Scientifically, woody plants like shrubs and trees are also perennial in their habit.
Perennials, especially small flowering plants, grow and bloom over the spring and summer and then die back every autumn and winter, then return in the spring from their root-stock rather than seeding themselves as an annual plant does. These are known as herbaceous perennials.
However, depending on the rigors of local climate, a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, or in a milder garden, may be treated by a gardener as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings or from divisions.
Some trees are by far the longest living plants and here are a few known examples from the Internet:
The world's oldest known living tree, a conifer that first took root at the end of the last Ice Age, has been discovered in Sweden.
The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) "Christmas tree" isn't ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years, according to a team led by Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University's department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden.
The spruce's stems or trunks have a lifespan of around 600 years, "but as soon as a stem dies, a new one emerges from the same root stock," Kullman explained. "So the tree has a very long life expectancy."
Bristlecone pines in the western United States are generally recognized as the world's oldest continuously standing trees.
The most ancient recorded, from California's White Mountains, is dated to around 5,000 years ago.
Bristlecone pines are aged by counting tree rings, which form annually within their trunks.
But in the case of the Norway spruce, ancient remnants of its roots were radiocarbon dated.
The study team also identified other ancient spruces in Sweden that were between 5,000 and 6,000 years old.
Trees much older than 9,550 years would be impossible in Sweden, because ice sheets covered the country until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago, Kullman noted.
As with all long-lived plant and fungal species, no individual part of a clonal colony is alive (in the sense of active metabolism) for more than a very small fraction of the life of the entire clone. Some clonal colonies may be fully connected via their root systems, while most are not actually interconnected, but are genetically identical clones which populated an area through vegetative reproduction. (termed suckers) Ages for clonal colonies, often based on current growth rates, are estimates.
A huge colony of the sea grass Posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean Sea could be up to 100,000 years old.
Pando (tree). This clonal colony of Populus tremuloides has been estimated at 80,000 years old, although some claims place it as being as old as one million years.
King's Lomatia in Tasmania: The sole surviving clonal colony of this species is estimated to be at least 43,600 years old.
When it comes to other than plant life forms we have:
A specimen of the Icelandic Cyprine Arctica islandica (also known as an ocean quahog), a mollusk, was found to have lived 405 years and possibly up to 410. Another specimen had a recorded lifespan of 374 years.
Some koi fish have reportedly lived more than 200 years, the oldest being Hanako, died at an age of 226 years on July 7, 1977.
The tuatara can live well above 100 years. Henry, a tuatara at the Southland Museum in New Zealand, mated for the first time at the age of 110 years in 2009 with an 80-year-old female and fathered 11 baby tuataras.
When it comes to our species we find that Jeanne Calment was the oldest human to have verifiable birth records. She was 122 years old at time of death.
Dominicans have only recently become aware of Elizabeth Israel, aka Ma Pampo, at 126 believed to be the world's oldest living human being. According to her baptismal records, she was born on January 27, 1875.
Amazing mum-of-10 Sakhan Dosova is said to be the world's oldest living human - outdoing her nearest rival by 16 years. She celebrated her 130th birthday on 23rd of March 2009 without ever having visited a doctor or taken any medicine. And Sakhan puts her health down to cottage cheese and a sense of humour. She said: "I don't have any special secret. I've never taken pills and if I was ill, I used granny's remedies to cure me."I have never eaten sweets. I don't like them. But I love kurt, a salty dried cottage cheese, and ground wheat."
What is likely to be the shortest lived species would be some bacteria at about 20 minutes.
I have read that there have been tribes living in remote mineral rich areas on the planet that have lived a life span of about 120 years. These people are reputed to be very healthy right up till the last few weeks of life and likely parts of their bodies have just worn out ending their time.
This gives great justification for growing your own fruit and vegetables and placing all the known minerals into the soil so that your body benefits, when you consume the same.
Even if you don't make 120 years the advantage of having a very healthy body for as long as possible makes good sense to me.