The first creatures on our planet really were plants. They remained in our world and today, if desired, blue-green algae, or rather, their modern descendants, can be grown and observed.
But they are far from the only plants that can be grown today. There are other types that are worth paying attention to.
The most ancient contemporaries
The most ancient plants were discovered in China during excavations. Their age can be more than 635 million years. Scientists determined this fact by the depth of the layers. But there are also living modern plants that have reached our days from distant eras. First of all, this is Antarctic moss, which is 5,500 years old, and whose ancestors are 43,600 years old, and even more, according to other tests, the age of similar plants was more than 100,000 years. Then mankind has just begun to leave the African continent in search of new lands.
Mosses are not the only ancient plants that have survived to this day. Also worth keeping in mind is poplars. Unique plants of this species can be found today - in the USA there is a colony of poplars, which makes up an entire organism of 50 thousand plants. They have a common root system that allows them to constantly reproduce, and this fact makes plants within the colony immortal, because stepsons have the same genetic data.It is believed that the age of a small forest is about 800,000 years, and all these plants came from a single ancestor.
Other ancient but modern plants
It is believed that the oldest cedar on our planet is cryptomeria. One of the greatest plants of this species grows in Japan, on Mount Yakushima, and has a growth of about 25 meters. The trunk of the plant in girth is 16 meters. This plant has an age of 7 thousand years, although someone claims that cedar could grow in just a couple of millennia. But still, what tree can be considered the oldest on the planet?
In relatively recent times, experts discovered an old Canadian spruce in Sweden. This relatively young-looking tree turned out to be a shoot of an older plant that grew here in the past and was at least 9.550 thousand years old. Since the young plant has the same genetic code, it can be considered not a descendant, but a continuation of the same plant, and therefore it has the status of the oldest single spruce in the world. Next to it, but at some distance, there are other similar clones with an age of 5-9 thousand years.
Ancient non-clone trees
In the 60s, the life of a unique pine called Prometheus, whose age was about 5 thousand years, ended. But there is a tree named Methuselah, which is almost 3 thousand years old, and this pine is the oldest on the planet today. At least that's what it is. By the antiquity of its origin, an exceptional tree is followed by a cypress-shaped firtsoyya, whose age will soon reach 3,700 years.This plant lives among a group of no less ancient individuals with an age of more than 2 thousand years, in a reserve located in southern Chile.
And in Atakama, one of the deserts of the planet, yareth grows - the bush has an age of more than 2 thousand years. The plant is a close relative of parsley. In Wales, there is a yew, which is about 4 thousand years old.
Why do some plants live in groups?
In addition to such a phenomenon as symbiosis, the origin of plants from a single shoot can compel a group “living” of plants. Accordingly, those plants that do not breed from one shoot or rhizome do not live in groups. If plants have a tendency to throw out seeds heap, their descendants can also live in groups. So there is no mystery in this.
Thus, very ancient plants, clones of old trees, or actually they live on the planet. Modern methods allow to date the time of their appearance. Plants appeared on the planet first, before other creatures. A group existence of some species is associated with their method of reproduction.
