Oldest tree in the World

Quantum Leaf

For years the Bristlecone Pines in America(California) had the staus of the oldest trees in the world at around 4000 years, then Australia held the title for a short spell with a Huon Pine in Tasmania (near Rosebery) at 6000 years, now they have found this. The odd thing I find is that regardless of the age, these trees appear to all grow in cold, arid environments, and are rarely very large for the age they present. This article was copied from a European news site. The photo of the tree is attached.

World's Oldest Living Tree -- 9550 years old -- Discovered In Sweden
ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2008) — The world's oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden. The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time.
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For many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region. "Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range," says Leif Kullman, Professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University.
A fascinating discovery was made under the crown of a spruce in Fulu Mountain in Dalarna. Scientists found four "generations" of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood produced from the highest grounds.
The discovery showed trees of 375, 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old and everything displayed clear signs that they have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them. Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones.
The tree now growing above the finding place and the wood pieces dating 9,550 years have the same genetic material. The actual has been tested by carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, USA.
Previously, pine trees in North America have been cited as the oldest at 4,000 to 5,000 years old.
In the Swedish mountains, from Lapland in the North to Dalarna in the South, scientists have found a cluster of around 20 spruces that are over 8,000 years old.
Although summers have been colder over the past 10,000 years, these trees have survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to push out another trunk as the other one died. "The average increase in temperature during the summers over the past hundred years has risen one degree in the mountain areas," explains Leif Kullman.
Therefore, we can now see that these spruces have begun to straighten themselves out. There is also evidence that spruces are the species that can best give us insight about climate change.
The ability of spruces to survive harsh conditions also presents other questions for researchers.
Have the spruces actually migrated here during the Ice Age as seeds from the east 1,000 kilometres over the inland ice that that then covered Scandinavia? Do they really originate from the east, as taught in schools? "My research indicates that spruces have spent winters in places west or southwest of Norway where the climate was not as harsh in order to later quickly spread northerly along the ice-free coastal strip," says Leif Kullman.
"In some way they have also successfully found their way to the Swedish mountains."
The study has been carried out in cooperation with the County Administrative Boards in Jämtland and Dalarna.
Adapted from materials provided by Umeå University.
Umeå University (2008, April 16). World's Oldest Living Tree -- 9550 years old -- Discovered In Sweden. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from World's Oldest Living Tree -- 9550 years old -- Discovered In Sweden

This 9,550 year old spruce has been discovered in Dalarna, Sweden. A favourable climate has produced an upright trunk since the beginning of the 1940s. (Credit: Leif Kullman), The mountain spruce stands on a root system that is nearly 10,000 years old

Attached Files

Oldest tree in world.pdf (34.8 KB, 206 views)

quercus

see why my greatest wish is to be able to verbally communicate with trees... I'd spend a year in a hammock in this fella and listen to what he has to say...
Things like these have a big effect on me though... A trees whom has lived nearly ten thousand years... Isn't that just amazing? How can a person not have respect for something like this?

newguy18

I understand completely q,sometimes while pruning i'll even start talking to the tree.Theres just something about trees that are soothing.

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old schooler

Eric Frei

This ties in with another thread here.

Significant Trees

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Bernard Keays

Ekka....I though this might be of interest. It was recently determined that a Western Australian mallee or 'Eucalyptus phylacis' had been estimated to be in the vicinity of 6380 years (Rossetto et al. 1999) or could be as old as 6660 years (Scott 2003). Anyway, I originally saw this on ABC’s Gardening Australia program a couple of years ago. Its quiet amazing that the tree has survived all this time.

Attached Files

e-phylacis.pdf (149.9 KB, 155 views)

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Bernie

Done it

This one was rediscovered in 1994, Wollemi pine, [Dinosaur Tree] 200 million years old.

WollemiPine.com - the official home of the Wollemi Pine.

You can even buy one now.