Methuselah (tree)

Methuselah is a 4,854-year-old[1] Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California.[2][3] It is recognized as the non-clonal tree with the greatest confirmed age in the world.[4] The tree's name refers to the biblical patriarch Methuselah, who ostensibly lived to 969 years of age, thus becoming synonymous with longevity or old age in many European languages including English.[5][6]

For the 750-year-old Methuselah's Oak tree, see Hampton Court Park. For the date palm grown from a 2,000-year-old seed, see Judean date palm.
Methuselah
Forest of gnarled pine trees with sandy soil between them
The Methuselah Grove
SpeciesGreat Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva)
LocationAncient Bristlecone Pine Forest, in the White Mountains, Inyo County, California
Coordinates37°22′46″N 118°09′42″W
Date seeded2833 BC
CustodianUnited States Forest Service

Geography

Methuselah is located between 2,900 and 3,000 m (9,500 and 9,800 ft) above sea level in the "Methuselah Grove" in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest within the Inyo National Forest. The United States Forest Service does not disclose its exact location.[7][8]

Status as oldest known tree

Methuselah was 4,789 years old when sampled in 1957[9] by Edmund Schulman and Tom Harlan,[1] with an estimated germination date of 2833 BC. Since this tree ages back to this date, using tree rings, research shows precipitation patterns that date back to 1983 BC.[10]

Dendrochronologist Matthew Salzer of the University of Arizona has been unable to reproduce Schulman's age estimate, due to a missing core. Salzer's estimate is approximately 4,665 years old.[11]

Other bristlecones

Another bristlecone specimen, WPN-114, nicknamed "Prometheus", was more than 4,844 years old when cut down in 1964, with an estimated germination date of 2880 BC. 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.[12][3]

An older bristlecone pine was reportedly discovered by Tom Harlan in 2009, based on a sample core collected in 1957. According to Harlan, the tree was 5,062 years old and still living in 2010. Neither the tree nor the sample core could be located after Harlan's death in 2013.[4]

Clonal organisms

Other, longer-lived organisms are clonal colonies, such as a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) colony named "Pando" in the Fish Lake National Forest in south-central Utah that has been estimated to be 80,000 years old, although precise estimates of clonal organisms such as this aspen colony are impossible with current technologies, and other scientific attempts to age Pando have estimated it may be much younger; the 11,700-year-old creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) colony, named "King Clone", in the Mojave Desert near the Lucerne Valley in California; and the 9,500-year-old Norway spruce (Picea abies) colony named "Old Tjikko" in Sweden.[13][14][15] Methuselah, however, is the oldest known non-clonal organism for which a reliable age has been established, although the Alerce Milenario o Gran Abuelo in Chile (5,484 – years old),[16][17] Llangernyw Yew in Wales (4,000 – 5,000 years old) and especially the Fortingall Yew in Scotland (3,000 – 9,000 years old) have some age estimates exceeding that of Methuselah.[18][19][20][21][22]

See also

References
  1. "Pinus longaeva". Gymnosperm Database. March 15, 2007. Archived from the original on May 17, 2019. Retrieved 2015-01-04.
  2. "Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest". USFS. Archived from the original on June 3, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  3. "Ancient Bristlecone Pine Natural History". USFS. Archived from the original on December 27, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  4. "Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research OldList". Archived from the original on 12 April 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  5. "as old as Methuselah". Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  6. Molloy, J. (1911). "Methuselah". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
  7. Kinkead, Gwen (June 17, 2003). "At Age 4,600-Plus, Methuselah Pine Tree Begets New Offspring". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 18, 2017. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  8. Methuselah Walk. U.S. Forest Service/Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association.
  9. "Methuselah, a Bristlecone Pine is Thought to be the Oldest Living Organism on Earth". U.S. Department of Agriculture.
  10. Hughes, Malcolm K.; Funkhouser, Gary (1998). "Extremes of moisture availability reconstructed from tree rings for recent millennia in the great basin of western north America". The Impacts of Climate Variability on Forests. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences. Vol. 74. pp. 99–107. doi:10.1007/BFb0009768. ISBN 3-540-64681-7.
  11. Ofgang, Erik (October 16, 2022). "Why mystery surrounds what may be Earth's oldest tree". The Washington Post.
  12. Hall, Carl (1998-08-23). "Staying Alive". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  13. Vasek, Frank C. (Feb 1980). "Creosote Bush: Long-Lived Clones in the Mojave Desert". American Journal of Botany. 67 (2): 246–255. doi:10.2307/2442649. JSTOR 2442649.
  14. "Larrea tridentata - King Clone". High Country News. Archived from the original on 2006-05-25. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  15. "World's Oldest Living clonal tree, 9550 years old, Discovered In Sweden". Science Daily. Archived from the original on 2018-03-05. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
  16. Lara, Antonio; Villalba, Ricardo (1993). "A 3620-Year Temperature Record from Fitzroya cupressoides Tree Rings in Southern South America". Science. 260 (5111): 1104–1106. Bibcode:1993Sci...260.1104L. doi:10.1126/science.260.5111.1104. PMID 17806339. S2CID 46397540.
  17. "Is the world's oldest tree growing in a ravine in Chile?".
  18. "Llangernyw Yew".
  19. "The Llangernyw Yew : The Oldest Tree in Wales and a Forgotten Poet". 13 May 2017.
  20. "Yew".
  21. "Fortingall".
  22. "Fortingall Yew, Fortingall – Forests & Woodlands".
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