The Grass Tree of the Palm House

The oldest living thing in the Belfast Botanic Gardens is not a tree. Xanthorrhoea preissii is an Australian grass tree, a monocot in the asphodel family, no closer to an oak than a lily is, and it builds its dark trunk out of the packed bases of leaves it shed centuries ago. This one is reckoned to be over 400 years old, which puts its first growth somewhere around the reign of Elizabeth I. It came to Belfast during Queen Victoria's reign and has spent every year since under cast iron and glass. The Palm House it stands in is older than most of the plants around it: foundation stone in 1839, the wings finished the following year, the dome added in 1852. A plant that predates the building by two centuries now depends on it entirely, because nothing in this climate would keep a Western Australian grass tree alive outdoors. The hardest recent evidence that it is still standing is that it came through the Palm House's major renovation in 2005, when the glasshouse was stripped and rebuilt around its collection. Visitor guides written since describe it in the present tense, which is reassuring rather than conclusive. If you have seen it lately, better still photographed it, we would like to hear from you.