What is the oldest living species of tree?
"Sherman Tree is neither the tallest known living tree on Earth (that distinction belongs to the Hyperion tree, a Coast redwood), nor is it the widest (both the largest cypress and largest baobab have a greater diameter), nor is it the oldest known living tree on Earth (that distinction belongs to a Great Basin bristlecone pine). With a height of , a diameter of , an estimated bole volume of , and an estimated age of 2,3002,700 years, it is nevertheless among the tallest, widest, and longest-lived of all trees on the planet. General Sherman (tree) General Sherman is a"
"Prometheus (tree) Prometheus (recorded as WPN-114) was the oldest known non-clonal organism, a Great Basin bristlecone pine (""Pinus longaeva"") tree growing near the tree line on Wheeler Peak in eastern Nevada, United States. The tree, which was at least 4,862 years old and possibly more than 5,000, was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and United States Forest Service personnel for research purposes. Those involved did not know of its world-record age before the cutting, but the circumstances and decision-making process remain controversial. The tree's name refers to the mythological figure Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods"
"to be between 80,000 and one million years old. The stress is on the difference between the singular ""oldest tree"" and the multiple ""oldest trees"", and between ""oldest clone"" and ""oldest non-clone"". The oldest known individual tree (that has not taken advantage of vegetative cloning) is a Great Basin bristlecone pine over 5,000 years old (germination in 3051 BC). The genome of ""Picea abies"" was sequenced in 2013, the first gymnosperm genome to be completely sequenced. The genome contains approximately 20 billion base pairs and is about six times the size of the human genome, despite possessing a similar number"
"Old Tjikko Old Tjikko is a -year-old Norway Spruce, located on Fulufjället Mountain of Dalarna province in Sweden. Old Tjikko originally gained fame as the ""world's oldest tree."" Old Tjikko is, however, a clonal tree that has regenerated new trunks, branches and roots over millennia rather than an individual tree of great age. Old Tjikko is recognized as the oldest living ""Picea abies"" and the third oldest known clonal tree. The age of the tree was determined by carbon dating of genetically matched plant material collected from under the tree, as dendrochronology would cause damage. The trunk itself is estimated"
"old when sampled (likely in 1957) by Edmund Schulman and Tom Harlan, with an estimated germination date of 2833 BC. Methuselah was for many years considered the world's oldest living tree, until 2012 when an older bristlecone pine was discovered and later announced in 2013. 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. Other, longer-lived discoveries are"
"more likely. A specimen of this species, located in the White Mountains of California was measured by Tom Harlan, a researcher with the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, to be years old. The identity of the specimen is being kept secret by Harlan. This is the oldest known non-clonal tree in the world. The previously oldest named specimen of this species, ""Methuselah"", is also located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of the White Mountains. Methuselah is years old, as measured by annual ring count on a small core taken with an increment borer. Its exact location is also kept secret."
"The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, ""Pinus longaeva"". One individual of this species, dubbed ""Methuselah"", is one of the world's oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California. An older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as ""Prometheus"" after the Greek immortal. The bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular ""pseudo whorls"", actually a very"
"Endicott Pear Tree The Endicott Pear Tree, also known as the Endecott Pear, is a European Pear (""Pyrus communis"") tree, located in Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts. It is believed to be the oldest living cultivated fruit tree in North America. The Endicott Pear Tree was planted in its current location between 1632 and 1649 (William Bentley reports dates of 1630, 1631, and 1639 in his diary) by John Endecott—a governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the Colony's earliest settlers, and ancestor of Endicott Peabody—and was probably brought from England on the ""Arbella"" in June 1630. Various reports indicate"
"tree featured on a stamp of the United States Postal Service. Lucy Larcom composed a poem, titled ""The Governor's Tree"", about the Endicott Pear Tree in 1890 for Arbor Day. Endicott Pear Tree The Endicott Pear Tree, also known as the Endecott Pear, is a European Pear (""Pyrus communis"") tree, located in Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts. It is believed to be the oldest living cultivated fruit tree in North America. The Endicott Pear Tree was planted in its current location between 1632 and 1649 (William Bentley reports dates of 1630, 1631, and 1639 in his diary) by John Endecott—a governor"
"Gilboa Fossil Forest Gilboa Fossil Forest, New York, United States, is cited as home to the Earth's oldest forest. Located near the Gilboa Dam in Schoharie County, New York, the region is home to tree trunks from the Devonian Period, which occurred roughly 380 million years ago. The fossils, some of the only survivors of their type in the world, are remnants of the Earth's earliest forests. This location has been of great interest to paleobotanists since the 1920s when New York City began a water project and excavation for a dam. The project turned up large upright tree stumps"
"the oldest known to science. Dates of 1092, 1166 and 1198 AD were obtained by carbon dating from older parts of the trunks of three trees. DNA tests show that the trees were originally planted from the same parent plant. This could indicate an attempt to keep the lineage of an older species intact. Then again, the three trees tested could have been sprouts reviving from the older roots. ""The results of tests on trees in the Garden of Gethsemane have not settled the question of whether the gnarled trees are the very same which sheltered Jesus because olive trees"
"may question whether or not they may die of old age). A giant sequoia, General Sherman is alive and well in its third millennium. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine called Methuselah is 4,848 years old (as of 2017) and the Bristlecone Pine called Prometheus was a little older still, at least 4,844 years (and possibly as old as 5,000 years), when it was cut down in 1964. The oldest known plant (possibly oldest living thing) is a clonal Quaking Aspen (""Populus tremuloides"") tree colony in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah called Pando at about 80,000 years. Lichen, a symbiotic"
"Sisters Olive Trees of Noah The Sisters or The Sisters Olive Trees of Noah are a grove of sixteen olive trees in the Lebanese town of Bcheale. According to local folklore, the trees are at least 5,000 years old, perhaps 6,000 years old or older. If this is correct, they may be the oldest non-clonal living trees in the world, as the oldest definitely-established age for a living tree is 5,064 years (as of 2014), for a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine in California. The age of any of The Sisters has not been determined by dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), and possibly"
"in the Jurupa Mountains in Riverside County, California, named the Jurupa Oak, was determined to be over 13,000 years old, a single individual living as a relict from the Pleistocene. It is therefore one of the oldest living plants in the world. Quercus palmeri Quercus palmeri is a species of oak known by the common name Palmer oak, or Palmer's oak. It is native to California (as far north as Fort Ord along the Monterey Bay), Baja California, New Mexico, and in Arizona through the transition zone to the eastern Mogollon Rim, where it grows in canyons, mountain slopes, washes,"
"Jurupa Oak The Jurupa Oak is a clonal colony of ""Quercus palmeri"" (Palmer's oak) trees in the Jurupa Mountains in Crestmore Heights, Riverside County, California. The colony has survived an estimated 13,000 years through clonal reproduction, making it one of the world's oldest living trees. The colony only grows after wildfires, when its burned branches sprout new shoots. It is the only one of its species in the surrounding area, which is a much drier climate and lower altitude than that in which Palmer's oaks typically grow. The oak has roughly 70 clusters of stems in a thicket which measures"
"from a fossil forest, some of which are on display at the Gilboa Dam site () and the New York Power Authority Blenheim-Gilboa Visitor's Center in Schoharie County and at the New York State Museum. An international research team has found evidence of the Earth's earliest forest trees, dating back 385 million years. Upright stumps of fossilized trees were uncovered after a flash flood in Gilboa, upstate New York, more than a century ago. However, until 2007, the crowns of the trees and overall morphology were unknown. They were located along the coast of an inland sea that covered what"
"thickest, largest, and oldest living trees are all conifers. The tallest is a Coast Redwood (""Sequoia sempervirens""), with a height of 115.55 meters (although one Victorian mountain ash, ""Eucalyptus regnans"", allegedly grew to a height of 140 meters, although the exact dimensions were not confirmed). The thickest, or tree with the greatest trunk diameter, is a Montezuma Cypress (""Taxodium mucronatum""), 11.42 meters in diameter. The largest tree by three-dimensional volume is a Giant Sequoia (""Sequoiadendron giganteum""), with a volume 1486.9 cubic meters. The smallest is the pygmy pine (""Lepidothamnus laxifolius"") of New Zealand, which is seldom taller than 30 cm"
"Sequoia sempervirens Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living species of the genus ""Sequoia"" in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast redwood, coastal redwood and California redwood. It is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1,200–1,800 years or more. This species includes the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching up to in height (without the roots) and up to in diameter at breast height (dbh). These trees are also among the oldest living things on Earth. Before commercial logging and clearing began by the 1850s, this massive tree occurred naturally in an estimated along much"
"Mingo Oak The Mingo Oak (also known as the Mingo White Oak) was a white oak (""Quercus alba"") in the U.S. state of West Virginia. First recognized for its age and size in 1931, the Mingo Oak was the oldest and largest living white oak tree in the world until its death in 1938. The Mingo Oak stood in Mingo County, West Virginia, in a cove at the base of Trace Mountain near the headwaters of the Trace Fork of Pigeon Creek, a tributary stream of Tug Fork. The tree reached a height of over , and its trunk was"
"and Primatomorpha cannot be ruled out. The fossil record of treeshrews is poor. The oldest putative treeshrew, ""Eodendrogale parva"", is from the Middle Eocene of Henan, China, but the identity of this animal is uncertain. Other fossils have come from the Miocene of Thailand, Pakistan, India, and Yunnan, China, as well as the Pliocene of India. Most belong to the family Tupaiidae, but some still-undescribed fossils from Yunnan are thought to be closer to the pen-tailed treeshrew. Named fossil species include ""Prodendrogale yunnanica"", ""Prodendrogale engesseri"", and ""Tupaia storchi"" from Yunnan, ""Tupaia miocenica"" from Thailand, and ""Palaeotupaia sivalicus"" from India. Treeshrew"
"Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is a protected area high in the White Mountains in Inyo County in eastern California. The Great Basin bristlecone pine (""Pinus longaeva"") trees grow between 9,800 and 11,000 feet (3,000–3,400 m) above sea level, in xeric alpine conditions, protected within the Inyo National Forest. Limber pine (Pinus flexilis) also grow in the forest. The Methuselah Grove in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is the location of the ""Methuselah"", a Great Basin bristlecone pine that is years old. For many years, it was considered the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism, until"
"in the world. The antecedents of the kauri appeared during the Jurassic period (between 190 and 135 million years ago). Although the kauri is among the most ancient trees in the world, it has developed a unique niche in the forest. With its novel soil interaction and regeneration pattern it can compete with the more recently evolved and faster growing angiosperms. Because it is such a conspicuous species, forest containing kauri is generally known as kauri forest, although kauri need not be the most abundant tree. In the warmer northern climate, kauri forests have a higher species richness than those"
"one of Ripley's ""Believe It or Not"" cartoons. The ""Big Tree"" is possibly the oldest extant live oak in the world. It possesses a circumference of over 35 feet and is more than 45 feet tall, while the crown's spread is 90 feet. ""Record"" or ""champion"" trees are determined by a cumulative measure of their girth, their spread, and their height, however, the near-continuous Gulf breeze limits the height of the ""Big Tree""; therefore, there exist many other live oak specimens that are actually taller, but once girth is factored in, that measure makes the ""Big Tree"" the second-largest live"
"Bristlecone pine The term bristlecone pine covers three species of pine tree (family Pinaceae, genus ""Pinus"", subsection ""Balfourianae""). All three species are long-lived and highly resilient to harsh weather and bad soils. One of the three species, ""Pinus longaeva"", is among the longest-lived life forms on Earth. The oldest ""Pinus longaeva"" is more than 5,000 years old, making it the oldest known individual of any species. Despite their potential age and low reproductive rate, bristlecone pines, particularly ""Pinus longaeva"", are usually a first-succession species, tending to occupy new open ground. They generally compete poorly in less-than-harsh environments, making them hard"
"in New York State in 2007 dating back to the Middle Devonian (about 385 million years ago). Prior to this discovery, ""Archaeopteris"" was the earliest known tree. Both of these reproduced by spores rather than seeds and are considered to be links between ferns and the gymnosperms which evolved in the Triassic period. The gymnosperms include conifers, cycads, gnetales and ginkgos and these may have appeared as a result of a whole genome duplication event which took place about 319 million years ago. Ginkgophyta was once a widespread diverse group of which the only survivor is the maidenhair tree ""Ginkgo"
"accounts from the 1860s are still quoted in contemporary texts such as the Guinness Book of Records and Carder, as well as being widely restated on the internet. Currently the world's tallest living tree is a ""Sequoia sempervirens,"" named the Hyperion, discovered in California in 2006. It is believed to be between 700 and 800 years old and was measured at 380.3 feet. Silviculture is defined as the art and science of controlling the establishment, health, growth, quality, protection and use of forests. It can involve a range of treatments such as planting, seeding, thinning, together with a wide range"
"Paleoclimatology Program and World Data Center for Paleoclimatology. The Data Bank includes raw ring width or wood density measurements, and site chronologies. Reconstructed climate parameters, including North American Drought, are also available for some areas. Over 2000 sites on six continents are included. The oldest known tree is a Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, growing in the White Mountains of eastern California. The tree was cored by Edmund Schulman in the late 1950s, but was never dated. Recently Tom Harlan completed the dating of the old core sample. The tree is still alive and is 5062 years old as"
"Treaty Oak (Jacksonville) The Treaty Oak is an octopus-like Southern live oak (""Quercus virginiana"") in Jacksonville, Florida. The tree is estimated to be 250 years old and may be the single oldest living thing in Jacksonville, predating the founding of the city by Isaiah Hart during the 1820s. It is located in Treaty Oak Park in the Southbank area of Downtown Jacksonville. The name's origin is generally believed to be related to some local apocryphal stories about peace accords between Native Americans and Spanish or American settlers signed under its branches. In reality, the name was created by the ""Florida"
"strip of living tissue connects the roots to a handful of live branches. Even though the trees' needles may age, they still remain functional in regulating water and by their ability to photosynthesize. Bristlecone pines are known for attaining great ages. A specimen of ""Pinus longaeva"" located in the White Mountains of California is years old—the oldest known individual tree in the world—according to measurements by Tom Harlan. The identity of the specimen is being kept secret by Harlan. Another well-known bristlecone pine in the White Mountains is Methuselah which is years old. The specific location of Methuselah is also"
"been shown to be a single clone connected by the root system. It is sometimes considered the world's largest organism by mass, covering , and also as amongst the world's oldest living organisms, at an estimated 80,000 years old. It is possible that other unknown clonal colonies of trees rival or exceed its size and/ or age. Another possible candidate for oldest organism on earth is an underwater meadow of the marine plant ""Posidonia oceanica"" in the Mediterranean Sea, which could be up to 100,000 years of age. When woody plants form clonal colonies, they often remain connected through the"
"Granit oak The Granit oak (in Bulgarian: Гранитски дъб) is an English (Pedunculate) oak tree that grows within the boundaries of Granit village, Bulgaria. This may be the oldest living oak tree in the world. The oak measures 2.38 m in diameter and 7.46 m in girth at waist level and reaches 23.4 m in height, but only eastern side branches remain alive. In March 1982 samples were taken with a pressler drill, from which it was estimated that the tree was 1637 years old. With an estimated germination date of 345 AD, it is the oldest tree in Bulgaria"
"a famous and historic tree in 2003. Duffie Oak The Duffie Oak is a historic Southern live oak in Mobile, Alabama. Being approximately 300 years old, it is considered by scholars to be the oldest living landmark in the city. It was originally known as the Seven Sisters Oak for its number of large limbs. It was later renamed for former mayor of Mobile George A. Duffie, who lived nearby. The tree has a circumference at breast height (CBH) of , a height of and a limb spread of . It was recognized by the National Arborist Association in 1977."
"rings on the otoliths (parts of motion-sensing organs). In plants, aspen trees are one example of biological immortality. Each individual tree can live for 40–150 years above ground, but the root system of the clonal colony is long-lived. In some cases, this is for thousands of years, sending up new trunks as the older trunks die off above ground. One such colony in Utah, given the nickname of ""Pando"", is estimated to be 80,000 years old, making it possibly the oldest living colony of aspens. The world's oldest known living non-clonal organism was the Methuselah tree of the species ""Pinus"