What are some of the oldest species of plants? (grow, Ferns, grass)

[carrot]

Not oldest in age...but oldest in terms of unchanged through time...

All i can really think of is Ginkgo Biloba tree. Apparently around with the dinosaurs. But what else?

[Pitt Chick]

Giant Redwoods?

[cittic10]

Metasequoia glyptostroboides

[J&Em]

Several kinds of ferns are about the same age as Gingko. Magnolia began appearing right after Gingko. There were some conifers that had developed, Cycads, which are sometimes called "Jurassic Plants" because of the era they appeared. Fig trees, in their earliest form, appeared in the same period. Less is known about plants than the dinosaurs and early mammals because plants and trees did not readily leave a "fossil" behind so I don't think there is any particular single oldest species living today that can be pointed out.

Edit to add a link. I got curious and decided to look around and see if there was an "oldest flowering plant" out there and found the following link.

http://www.conservatoryofflowers.org...vatory-flowers

[andthentherewere3]

Hmmm, aloe vera? Editing to say after googling that it was "frequently cited as being used in herbal medicine since the beginning of the first century AD", and "Aloe vera has a long association with herbal medicine, although it is not known when its medical applications were first suspected. Early records of Aloe vera use appear in the Ebers Papyrus from 16th century BC,[17] in both Dioscorides' De Materia Medica and Pliny the Elder's Natural History written in the mid-first century CE[17] along with the Juliana Anicia Codex produced in 512 AD".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_vera


I don't think it has changed much with time. Very interesting subject!

Editing again to say I found a news story about 77,000 year old bedding made from medicinal plants and grasses, namely the "wild river quince", or "cape laurel". This tree still exists.

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/08/143304...-and-breakfast




The oldest evidence for bedding at the site is particularly well-preserved, and consists of a layer of fossilised sedge stems and leaves, overlain by a tissue-paper-thin layer of leaves, identified by botanist Marion Bamford as belonging to Cryptocarya woodii, or River Wild-quince.

[azoria]

The most invasive unstoppable weed in the PNW:

Horsetail.

Said to be the first plant to re-emerge on the barren slopes of Mt. St. Helens after the volcanic eruption, this extremely primitive plant cannot be controlled or contained. It is nearly immune to herbicides, spreads by both airborne spores and deep underground runners, and once established it is impossible to get rid of.



Equisetum ( /ˌɛkwɨˈsiːtəm/; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in the Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.[2]
Equisetum is a "living fossil", as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests.

[Cattknap]

I used to grow various Cycads when I lived in Southern California (well only in the back yard and in pots)....I was told that they are the oldest plant genus...don't know if that is true....there are many varieties and they get absolutely huge! One variety, Zamia furfuracea, a Mexican cycad, grew absolutely massive - the problem was it cannot take direct sunlight so it had it's own 12 food umbrella...sadly we sold all the cycads with the house - they would have never lived in Kentucky.

Here is a picture of some of our cycads a few months after purchase....the cardboard fern is on the front left and atually got sunburned in that spot, so it was moved under it's own umbrella....it tripled in size over a 4 year period - it was that glorious So. California beach weather.

[High_Plains_Retired]

Originally Posted by carrot

Not oldest in age...but oldest in terms of unchanged through time...

All i can really think of is Ginkgo Biloba tree. Apparently around with the dinosaurs. But what else?

Ginkgo biloba was the species I thought about when I saw your thread title. Do biologists still believe it is a species that represents the divergence of cone bearing and flowering plants? I recall learning something to that effect some thirty-five years ago in school but thoughts on biological evolution have undoubtedly changed much since I was a student.

There used to be a large and very beautiful gingko tree in front of the Administration building at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales. There are fossils of the leaves of this tree in the Smithsonian in D.C. but I can't recall which building that was in. My favorite tree, I once planted a gingko tree at my mom's home in deep east Texas but it didn't survive in her old heavy clay soil.

[cap1717]

cycads