Sorry to be picky, but Cecil, you got the wrong species of bristlecone listed. Pinus aristata has been confirmed to live as long as 2,600 years. But that pails in comparison to its long lived cousin, the California bristlecone, Pinus longavae which has been documented to live over 4000 years. .
A little tidbit about both species. Most pines shed their needles every three years. But not bristlecones or foxtails. The needles on these species can live for decades. Thus the trees do not need to use energy to replace their “factories” every three years. This could explain their long lives. Or maybe not.
Welcome to the Straight Dope, SugarPineFoundation! We hope you will kick your Birks off, put your feet up, and relax and enjoy the place a while.
When starting a thread referencing an article of Uncle Cece’s, it’s helpful to place a link to that article in the initial post. This can be done by simply cutting and pasting the url from your browser’s address window into the post, http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_042.html , like that. This helps everyone be certain which article you are discussing.
I am assuming that you are addressing the article currently on the front page of the main website, Can trees live forever?.
Again, welcome, and enjoy. Anyone who is into pines will find themselves in demand answering questions here from time to time.
This piece from the University of Arizona records the discovery and dendrochronology of the Methuselah tree (Pinus longaeva) by Schulman and Harlan in 1957:
Other sources give the age of the Methuselah tree as 4,789 years (in 1957) but the significant number here is 4,600 rings because:
It’s highly likely that Cecil’s ‘researcher’ is none other than the aforementioned Schulman, the ‘one case’ is Methuselah and therefore the species is Pinus longaeva rather than Pinus aristata.
Shulman neglected to note in his analysis that there is a huge stand of P.longavae on the flanks of Boundary Peak on the northern end of the White Mountain Range. This peak provides backcountry skiers with a fantastic opportunity to ski through thousand year old trees directly from the summit of Nevada’s highest peak. It was probably in his notes I am guessing.
So I have no clue how these people count the rings in a bristlecone. It was noted in the article that the needles are kept alive by a thin band of bark with live phloem as a link to the roots. But the trees are not easily cored because they are so distorted. I didn’t want to put any holes in one, but it seems nearly impossible to get a good core.
Unfortunately the species is in great jeopardy from Cronartium ribicola or white pine blister rust. WPBR is a non-native and invassive fungus that is rapidly killing off North American white pines. White pines can be identified by having five needles per bundle. We have not seen any WPBR in the White Mountains yet. But I did find some about 100 miles to the north at Ebbets Pass. The idea that the east side Sierra is too high and too dry for WPBR has not panned out. The rust is rapidly spreading. Researchers have found that some bristlecone pines have a natural genetic resistance to wpbr, so there is some hope. My little non-profit looks for sugar pines with major gene resistance to WPBR and then we plant seedlings from proven resistant stock. That will work in the short term at least. Hopefully many bristlecones also have resistance.
I’ve long had a similar question on the immortality of perennials. I have plants that come up year after year, and find myself wondering if, absent insects or drought, they will keep coming up until the sun swallows the earth. Because perennials don’t have the same architectural problem as trees do, you’d think they’d be less affected by the ravages of age. And just to clarify, I’m not talking about plants that produce the next generation through seed, giving the appearance of being perennials. I’m talking about stuff like daylilies or tiger lilies, that come up from the part that overwinters below the ground.
