Story:
Fascinating stuff, whether or not tests confirm the estimated age.
However, the article does include a passing comment I find really depressing: the location of these ancient trees has to be kept secret from the public because otherwise people will destroy them.
Oh well. It was a nice world while it lasted.
P.S. The location of this latest tree has been released, but only after a delay to get patrols and other defensive measures in place. Ugh.
Will be interesting to see if it is older than Bristlecone pines. Said to live over 4000 years. Oldest one at 4,800 (as far as we know)
There is a ‘grove’ of them close to me.
Don’t let any British teens near it.
I never know whether to be angry at those who would despoil such natural wonders, or pity them, for their apparent inability to connect with the awe of being in contact with something greater than our myopic everyday concerns. This is I think best captured by Matthew Olzmann’s ‘Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America’.
Maybe we should cut it down and count the rings, just to be sure.
Yeah, that’s the “Methuselah Pine” mentioned in the OP. Though of course it’s a misnomer: Even Methuselah didn’t make it quite all the way to one millennium.
Will they drill out a core on this tree? It would be interesting to examine the ring history.
That is what the lore says, sometime in the 1950s or 1960s maybe. WPN-114, something like that. Someone broke the expensive, Swedish core drill bit, so naturally … they couldn’t wait. Cut it down to count rings. Bristlecone pine in Nevada/California. They already look pretty much dead even when they are alive.
That’s correct; WPN-114, also known as Prometheus. I first heard the story on Radiolab.
It’s restin’.
It’s PINING. Get it, pining?
I’ll see myself out.