Bristlecone pines are the oldest non-clonal living trees
A gnarled pine called Methuselah was already ancient when the pyramids were built.
High in the White Mountains of California, twisted, half-dead-looking pines are the oldest individual trees known to science. The Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) includes a tree named Methuselah, roughly 4,850 years old — already a mature tree when the Great Pyramid was raised.
Methuselah was long thought to be the record-holder until 2012, when a nearby bristlecone was dated at more than 5,060 years. Their exact locations are kept secret to guard against vandalism.
What lets them live so long is, paradoxically, how hard their lives are. Growing slowly on cold, windswept, nutrient-poor limestone above 3,000 metres, they build incredibly dense, resin-rich wood that resists insects, fungi and rot. Sparse neighbours mean little fuel for wildfire, and a tree can survive even when most of its trunk has died, sustained by a thin living strip of bark.
Their age is counted directly, ring by ring, in the wood.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
