6 of the oldest trees from around the world.

Earlier this month, the world lost one of its most ancient inhabitants; "The Senator" a cypress tree which had weathered through 3500 years and had grown to 118 feet high burned down after being struck by lightning.

‘The Senator’ Burns Down: One of the World’s Oldest Trees Destroyed by Fire

A 118-foot, 3,500-year-old bald cypress tree named “The Senator” burned to the ground yesterday morning. Located in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida, the Senator is thought to have been set on fire by a lightning strike two weeks ago.

Source


In honor of "The Senator", Mental Floss put together a list of some of the remaining oldest trees in the world. I would have thought they would all be in the forests out West which were untouched by human hands for the greater part of this planet's history but, they seem to be pretty well spaced out through the world and the pics are magnificent.

6 of the Oldest Trees in the World

1. Old Tjikko (Sweden) 9550 years old

The world’s oldest known living tree sprouted sometime during the last Ice Age, roughly 9,550 years ago. This 16-foot spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden may look more like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but don’t be fooled: this little guy’s root system got started back when the British Isles were still connected to Europe by an ice bridge. According to Wired, geologist Leif Kullman, who discovered the tree, named it after his dead dog.

2. Methuselah (California) 5000 years old

Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree from California’s White Mountains, is thought to be almost 5,000 years old—and the oldest non-clonal tree in the world. The exact location of the gnarled, twisted Methuselah is a Forest Service secret, for its protection (that might not be it above).

I was expecting a bunch of tall sequoia looking trees reaching high into the heavens but a few are actually sprawling type trees that cover a large area and the oldest is pretty scraggly looking.

I wonder what its like to actually visit these magnificent trees and walk up to and touch something so ancient, many of them older than human civilization itself. Unfortunately, it looks like many of these trees are fenced in to protect them from vandalism or wanton destruction by visitors. It is truly a shame that people these days seem incapable of holding anything in high esteem or with a proper sense of reverence.

I also found it pretty upsetting that one of these trees is located in Iran, a country the US can't seem to wait to bomb into oblivion. I hope it isn't the next victim of America's quest for empire in the Middle East.

edit on 2/1/12 by FortAnthem because:

edit on Sat Feb 11 2012 by DontTreadOnMe because: IMPORTANT: Using Content From Other Websites on ATS

[color=dodgerblue]I find it sad that there is a need to protect the trees from vandals. I have never understood vandalism and have never gotten why people feel the need to do it.

There is a such a lack of respect in the world these days. Does that statement make me sound old? Oh well (:

S&F

Supurb post, really enjoyed and unexpected, I have never really thought about how old the oldest trees would/could be.
Seeing them and reading about them is very humbling indeed, imagine the stories (truth) they could tell after being witness to around 10'000 years of earths history.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I think there is some more homework needed. There are trees in the US older than a couple of those I'm sure. There is another Bristle Cone Pine in Utah that was once thought to be the oldest example for instance. Also the one that says thought to be 2,000 to 4,000 means its age is a guess and nobody has confirmed it. There are many trees in the 3 to 4 thousand range in the California Redwoods area including Cyprus I think and also in the Giant Sequoias also in California.

Forgive me I was just in the Redwoods a few months ago, got curious and read a lot of info on the Internet as well as read the flyers for tourists. Most of the largest and oldest there are in secret locations because some idiots try to kill them.

Interesting thread thanks so much. I did not know there were planted trees that old.

reply to post by Blaine91555


It makes me wonder how they determine the ages of these trees. I thought that it was necessary to count the rings inside the trunk to determine how old a tree was but, this would require destroying the tree. Maybe the only way to know for sure is to inspect the tree postmortem?

I wonder how sure they are about the ages of those trees.

Originally posted by daryllyn
[color=dodgerblue]I find it sad that there is a need to protect the trees from vandals. I have never understood vandalism and have never gotten why people feel the need to do it.

There is a such a lack of respect in the world these days. Does that statement make me sound old? Oh well (:

S&F

Because people are evil and they get their sick kicks from destroying ancient things. It happens in archeaological sites all around the world. What they can't loot they destroy. Criminals for you.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I hiked to the Bristlecone in Utah years ago. We had a tree expert with us on the trip. They take tiny cores and count the rings. The wound is not harmful and heals over.

It's sad about the vandals who go after these tree's. The farthest north tree in the world was destroyed here in Alaska a year or two ago. Sick people on this planet.

That was cool to read through. It's crazy to think that thousands of years ago people were walking around and doing stuff and looking at the same tree we are looking at now.

Beautiful specimens, and a great thread subject, OP. I love trees and they're often prominent in my artwork.

That being said, I give this thread another couple of posts before the creationists show up and claim the aging of these trees is off because the world isn't that old.

www.environmentalgraffiti.com...
some good ones ther too, i train a few bonsai trees that have been passed down. nice thread s&f.

hi op

excellent thread
can i give a little bigup to our famous tree
The major oak
robin hoods tree

www.eyemead.com...

Originally posted by FugitiveSoul
That being said, I give this thread another couple of posts before the creationists show up and claim the aging of these trees is off because the world isn't that old.

No worries there; none of these trees is older than 10,000 years old, the age many creationists hold to.

Then again, maybe they'll show up claiming that no trees older that 10,000 years is proof that the Earth is young.

I love trees! The moments in time they go through is awe inspiring. What I find most interesting though is the 'Clonal Trees' which are tree systems that die above ground, but the root systems survive and resprout a clone as it were of a tree. I originally knew about the huon pine plantation in Tasmania which is around (estimated) 10,000 years old. I was lead to believe it was the oldest, but according to this wiki (scroll to bottom), there are other clonal trees which trounce even that!

Clonal Tree Ages

(hope this works)

Pando 80,000[27] - 1,000,000[28] Quaking aspen Populus tremuloides Fishlake National Forest, Utah, United States Covers 107 acres (0.43 km2) and has around 47,000 stems (average age 130 years), which continually die and are renewed by its roots. Is also the heaviest known organism, weighing 6,000 tonnes.

Late last summer I got to spend a day up in the mountains of Utah in an area of Bristle Cone Pines.
I felt humbled by the age of these trees and to me it was an honor to sit with them for the day.

Here are a couple photos of several that I took that day. It is amazing to sit with something that has lived and seen all that these trees have seen and to be able to weather the storms that roll across the tops of these mountains.

Awesome thread thanks for sharing! Nature is unbelievable. Now if only those trees could talk...

Originally posted by FortAnthem

No worries there; none of these trees is older than 10,000 years old, the age many creationists hold to.

Then again, maybe they'll show up claiming that no trees older that 10,000 years is proof that the Earth is young.

Depends on which delusionists you talk to I suppose. I've heard everything from 6,000 - 8,000 - 10,000 years. The only thing they have in common is their ability to be color blind to logic.

Back to the OP.

13,000 year old Palmer Oak



This Palmer Oak first sprouted from an acorn in California's Jurupa Mountains around 13,000 years ago and has survived by essentially cloning itself over the many millennia.

Source

reply to post by Qumulys


I see its not the tree itself that has been around that long, its the root system. That's how Old Tjikko is rated at almost 10,000 years old.

A clonal colony can survive for much longer than an individual tree. A colony of 47,000 quaking aspen trees (nicknamed "Pando"), covering 106 acres (43 ha) in the Fishlake National Forest of the United States, is considered one of the oldest and largest organisms in the world. The colony has been estimated to be 80,000 years old, although tree ring samples date individual, above-ground, trees at only an average of about 130 years. A colony of Huon pine trees covering 1 hectare (2.5 acres) on Mount Read, Tasmania is estimated to be around 10,000 years old, as determined by DNA samples taken from pollen collected from the sediment of a nearby lake. Individual trees in this group date to no more than 4,000 years old, as determined by tree ring samples.

Wiki

reply to post by FortAnthem

Awesome thread Fort, unbelievable, amazing to think of what those trees have seen and been through

World's tallest tree - Hyperion:


The General Sherman:


This is aggravating though

some of the oldest trees in the world. Known commonly as the Alerce, many of these soaring evergreens have been logged in the last two hundred years,

I hate to see massive old beautiful trees disappear because of us, let a lone the entire forests.

Originally posted by Realm52

World's tallest tree - Hyperion:

I got vertigo from looking at this pic from the BOTTOM of the tree. Imaging the view from the top of one of those babies.

Originally posted by Realm52

I love the way the bark spirals its way to the top. If you look at the limbs, they mimic this swirling.