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The World’s Oldest Tree Lives in Sweden
- tito 7y agoSurprised it's such a small tree, more like a Bonzai tree. Though as mentioned in the article, "Big trees cannot get this old". "The world’s oldest tree, Old Tjikko, is a 9,500-year-old Norwegian Spruce tree that was discovered in 2004 by Professor Leif Kullman, and to this day remains the world’s oldest tree."
- altec3 7y agoHere's a good 1 minute podcast about it - https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/2AA00080-0AD4-55E1-EA50BC7A36A218C4/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/2AA00080-...
- tomerico 7y agoThe trunk itself is estimated to be only a few hundred years old. When the trunk dies but the root system is still alive, it may sprout a new trunk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko
- altec3 7y agoI'd always thought that the Methuselah Tree in California was the oldest living tree. Apparently there's some disagreement, as Old Tjikko is a clonal tree, meaning the trunks come and go but the roots stay living underneath [1]. So if you're counting non-clone trees, Methuselah is the oldest. If you're counting clonal trees, some Quaking Aspens are believed to be between 80,000 and 1,000,000 years old [2]. [1] https://allthatsinteresting.com/old-tjikko https://allthatsinteresting.com/old-tjikko [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
- saghm 7y ago> some Quaking Aspens are believed to be between 80,000 and 1,000,000 years old [2]. 1,000,000? I don't see anything in the Wikipedia article referring to anything higher than 100,000. Was this a typo, or am I missing something?
- altec3 7y agoI got that figure from the Norway Spruce article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_abies#Longevity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_abies#Longevity edit: I've also found this snippet: Individuals may reach ages in excess of 1 million years [1] [1] https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/46/1/25/262587 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/46/1/25/262587
- samirillian 7y agoThere's also Prometheus, which was older than Methusaleh but was cut down by people looking for the old trees. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree)
- mmanfrin 7y agoWhen I had ambitions for general interest blogging, I had an article kicking around in my head on the dangers of being a superlative tree. Prometheus was the oldest tree, killed by a core sample. Tree of Ténéré, the most isolated tree in the world, felled by a drunk driver. [1] The Senator, the biggest cypress in the world was lit afire by an arsonist. [2] Kiidk'yaas, a rare golden spruce, was felled by someone protesting logging. [3] I also remember reading about the 2nd (largest, tallest, widest?) tree in the world being lit alight by someone smoking meth in its branches, but I can't find the source or name. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Senator_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Senator_(tree) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiidk%27yaas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiidk%27yaas
- ricree 7y agoThe meth example you're thinking of is probably The Senator, which you've already linked.
- mmanfrin 7y agoI think you're right.
- Mengkudulangsat 7y agoThe Kiidk'yaas one is bad-ass! I hope they make a movie out of him. Edit: They did! [1] [1] https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/film-review-hadwins-judgement/ https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/film-review-hadw...
- henrikschroder 7y ago
- tomgp 7y agoThere's speculation that this some yew trees may be of similar age to Methuselah, notably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7505706.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7505...
- yitchelle 7y ago12000 year old beech - http://oltw.blogspot.com/2011/12/12000-year-old-antarctic-beech.html http://oltw.blogspot.com/2011/12/12000-year-old-antarctic-be...
- mongol 7y agoWikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko According to it, Old Tjikko is "the oldest known Norway spruce"
- neuralzen 7y agoWould have been fun to see this tree in the film Midsommar, but it would have been terrible if it was damaged somehow (film makers aren't always they best at keeping nature intact, just look at the Maltese beach ecosystem which was destroyed during the filming of the GoT Dothraki wedding scenes).
- williesleg 7y agoI'll betcha the guest migrants chop it down and use it to burn down stuff. They're so migranty.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zV62drdTw6CM 7y agoThere is a research project [1] and book [2] by Rachel Sussman and Hans Ulrich Obrist called »The Oldest Living Things«, which features this and many more fascinating trees, moss, and other plants. [1] http://www.rachelsussman.com/oltw http://www.rachelsussman.com/oltw [2] http://www.oldestlivingthings.com/ http://www.oldestlivingthings.com/
- ALittleLight 7y agoI wonder what percentage of the world's trees have been carbon dated. I'd bet that effectively 0% of the world's trees have been carbon dated and that there remain older ones out there.
- uoaei 7y ago~0% of sampled trees does not necessarily mean ~0% certainty that we have found the oldest tree, since tree ages are correlated strongly with each other in local neighborhoods. We know where to look to find "oldish" trees and then narrow our search there. No need to sample trees from a new growth forest to be reasonably certain how old they are.
- ALittleLight 7y agoSuppose there's a thousand square kilometers of new growth forest. Is every tree in that area new? What if there's a tree that substantially predates the others and is now surrounded by new growth? I'd agree that percentage tested isn't directly the same as likelihood we've found the oldest, but I do think there's a strong correlation.
- ceejayoz 7y agoCarbon dating only works on a dead organism.
- whyenot 7y agoIf you look at the trunk of a tree, almost all of it is actually dead. There is only a relative thin layer of tissue (the cambium) under the bark that is alive. The same is true for roots (with minor differences).
- tyfon 7y agoI often think that tidbits like this should be kept local or private. I can imagine some jackass trying to chop this one down now, but it seems like it might survive it as long as they don't kill the roots. Still awesome stuff.
- d--b 7y agoHow do they use carbon 14 to date this? Isn’t it used to date dead things? And if the trunk comes and goes, the bark is never really old, is it?
- zeristor 7y agoNo where near as old but there’s a 1450 - 1900 year old Oak tree in Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongeegen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongeegen Strangely there were three ancient oak trees close to each other until a few decades back, the other two died recently.