- Methuselah (tree)
-
For the 750 year-old Methuselah's Oak tree, see Hampton Court Park.
The Methuselah Grove of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, in the White Mountains, Inyo County, California.
Methuselah is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California.[1][2] Its measured age of 4,842 years makes it the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism. The ancient tree is named after Methuselah, a Biblical figure having the longest mentioned lifespan in the Bible of 969 years.
Contents
Geography
The tree grows at 2,900–3,000 m (9,500–9,800 ft) above sea level in the "Methuselah Grove" in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest within the Inyo National Forest. Methuselah's exact location is undisclosed as a protection against vandalism.[2][3]
Status as oldest known tree
"Methuselah" was 4,789 years old when sampled in 1957 by Edmund Schulman and Tom Harlan, with an estimated germination date of 2832 BC. Methuselah is the oldest known living tree and non-clonal organism in the world—4,842 years old as of 2011.[4][5]
Other ancients
Bristlecones
An older bristlecone specimen, WPN-114 and nicknamed Prometheus, was more than 4,844 years old when cut down in 1964, with an estimated germination date of 2880 BC. Another bristlecone tree, approximately 4,600 years old, is still living. A dendrochronology, based on these trees and other bristlecone pine samples, extends back to about 9000 BC, albeit with a single gap of about 500 years.[6][2]
Clonal organisms
Other longer-lived discoveries are clonal colony organisms: such as the 80,000 year old Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) clonal colony named "Pando" in the Fish Lake National Forest in south-central Utah; 11,700 year old Creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) clonal colony, named "King Clone", in the Mojave Desert near the Lucerne Valley in California; and the 9,500 year old Norway spruce (Picea abies) clonal colony named "Old Tjikko" in Sweden.[7][8][9]
See also
- List of oldest trees
- List of famous trees
References
- ^ Inyo N.F.-Bristlecone Forest.accessed 8/30/2010
- ^ a b c NFS: Bristlecone Natural History.accessed 8/30/2010
- ^ Methuselah Walk. U.S. Forest Service/Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association.
- ^ Info and clips from documentary film
- ^ "Pinus longaeva". Gymnosperm Database. March 15, 2007. http://www.conifers.org/pi/Pinus_longaeva.php. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
- ^ Hall, Carl (1998-08-23). "Staying Alive". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/08/23/SC72173.DTL.
- ^ Creosote Bush: Long-Lived Clones in the Mojave Desert, Frank C. Vasek, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Feb., 1980), pp. 246-255
- ^ http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=11165 Larrea tridentata - King Clone
- ^ Science Daily: World's Oldest Living clonal tree, 9550 years old, Discovered In Sweden
Coordinates: 37°23′07″N 118°10′38″W / 37.38528°N 118.17722°W
External links
Categories:- Individual trees
- Trees of California
- Inyo National Forest
- Natural history of Inyo County, California
- Trees of the Great Basin desert region
- History of California
- Landmarks in California
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
