The oldest tree on Earth is considered to be one of the bristlecone pines. Its exact age is unknown, but the approximate age is about 5,000 years. This tree even has a name - it is called Methuselah.
The history and habitat of the Methuselah pine
This pine tree grows in the mountains of the western United States, at an altitude of about 3 thousand meters above sea level. This territory in California is occupied by a National Reserve, and, despite this, scientists and guides keep information about Methuselah in the strictest confidence for fear of vandalism. Which of the pines growing on the slopes of the White Mountains has such a respectable age is known only to a narrow circle of people.
Workers and scientists rightly fear that every visitor will want to take a picture with a long-liver, and on the quiet and tear off a piece from this tree, so no one will say exactly where Methuselah grows. The grove where it grows is shown to everyone, without exception, but there are many trees there.
The name of the pine tree was given from the biblical prophet Methuselah, who was also a famous long-liver by human standards - he lived for 969 years. The pine tree was discovered in 1953 by a botanist named Edmund Schulman. This pine tree has been officially assigned the status of the oldest individual, i.e. an uncloned organism that has survived on the planet.
Getting to the White Mountains National Park is not easy. Its second name is Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, which means “Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest”. This reserve lies away from tourist roads, high in the mountains, and most of the time, the passage there is impossible due to snow drifts, since the last part of the path is a mountain serpentine.
Ancient bristlecone pines
Methuselah grows on the slope of the White Mountains surrounded by his own kind. Time, wind and cold have twisted their trunks, some of them have lost most of their bark from frostbite and look half-dead. There is very little moisture in those places, and most of the precipitation falls in the form of snow, the soil is calcareous, dolomite prevails in it. All pines in such conditions look about the same.
Not too many visitors come to the reserve, but the secret of Methuselah's location is strictly observed. After all, this pine initially occupied only the second place among centenarians. A pine named Prometheus was about 500 years older than Methuselah and grew in the neighboring state of Nevada. Vandals have nothing to do with her death - Prometheus would have been felled out of ignorance.
The reserve at that time had not yet been established and research on the age of the pines growing in those places was not carried out. Student Donald Curry needed materials for his thesis on glaciers. He got permission and cut down one of the bristlecone pines growing there. Later, the counting of annual rings showed that the age of the pine was more than 5 thousand years. There were many old trees in those parts, but by an absurd accident the student chose not just the old, but the oldest of all on Earth.
