Worlds oldest tree

supahdupah · Apr 7, 2008

Just saw on tv that they found oldest tree scientists ever found so far.
It was 8000 thousand years olds and growing in northern sweden.They think that is was one of the first trees started to grow after the ice age.It was some kind of yew tree. Looked more like a weird bush then tree lol
the tree was only 6 feet high and it´s just started to grow again cause of the climate changes.

Classyathome · Apr 7, 2008

cool...

yohomz · Apr 7, 2008

I wanna see it. Thats cool.

Feyd · Apr 7, 2008

Got a link mang?

Mr Celsius · Apr 7, 2008

Lets cut it down and make a fire :biglaugh:

I'm joking, for the 'salad eaters' :laughing:

pineappaloupe · Apr 7, 2008

Interesting. I always thought i was the bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of NV.
There is another controversy about the oldest tree. Scientists have found apsen groves in CO that have been around for 20,000 years. Aspen trees spread through creeping routes and can genetically be considered the same organism.

got a link to the article?

supahdupah · Apr 8, 2008

can only find a swedish news article at least you can see a pic http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article2214606.ab
it says in this article that carlifornia got some realy old trees aswell some are problaby the same age asthis one.

DIGITALHIPPY · Apr 8, 2008

intresting tree, dosent look old, or big... just like you said, a bush.... wierd....
i wonder how they know. what made them test its age.

Sheriff Bart · Apr 8, 2008

yews are crazy plants....they might be 'immortal' here on earth....

The End Is Near · Apr 8, 2008

pineappaloupe said:
Interesting. I always thought i was the bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of NV.
There is another controversy about the oldest tree. Scientists have found apsen groves in CO that have been around for 20,000 years. Aspen trees spread through creeping routes and can genetically be considered the same organism.

got a link to the article?

That's what I thought, thanks to BBC's documentary series The Private Life of Plants. The oldest bristlecone pine is said to be as old as agriculture itself. As far as the oldest organism, it's arguable, but there's some kind of desert plant that just spreads outward and lets the middle shoots die, and the empty space between the live circle of the plant is what scientists used to estimate it's age as the oldest organism. Though I suppose it can be argued that it's just a new generation.

supahdupah · Apr 8, 2008

DIGITALHIPPY said:
intresting tree, dosent look old, or big... just like you said, a bush.... wierd....
i wonder how they know. what made them test its age.

They send it to miami where they tested it with the carbon 14 method. 7890 years old.

NOKUY · Apr 8, 2008

hmmmmmmmmm...

i bet its not the oldest.

i know that bristlecones are the oldest......and i bet they cant prove that it is older than the oldest bristlecone pine.

supahdupah · Apr 8, 2008

On the news yesterday they said it was the oldest.. Today in the newspapers they say that is one of the oldest in the world, some trees in california was estimated to be about the same age.

varriform · Apr 9, 2008

I don't think any trees in California are 8,000 years old.

mk6 · Apr 9, 2008

hey yukon - cool picture bro

dbuzz · Apr 13, 2008

‘World’s oldest tree’ discovered in Dalarna

Published: 11 Apr 08 14:57 CET

Swedish researchers have uncovered a stand of spruce trees with an 8,000-year-old tree root system in Dalarna, making it among the oldest in the world.

http://www.thelocal.se/11054/20080411/

Rosy Cheeks · Apr 13, 2008

I just read the original article from the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, and we're actually not talking about the world's oldest tree, but the world's oldest yew.

As far as I know, there are other tree species that have the genetic capacity to become older than this. A tree can survive as long as its genetics and environment allow it to stay alive, but it can also survive by cloning itself naturally.
In 1995, researchers found a forest of Huon Pine trees in a Tasmanian mountain range that had exactly the same genetic make-up. In fact, the forest - covering an area of 2.5 hectars - proved not to be forest, but one single tree! What happened was that in the winter, snow accumulated on the lower branches until it forced them down on the ground. As the branches touched the ground, they rooted and produced new trees, which then repeated the process.
Dating the tree(s) by traditional tree-ring sampling found the oldest to be approximately 4000 years old, but by checking DNA against modern Huon trees, they believed the 'forest' to have started growing at least 10 000 years ago, and perhaps as much as 30 000 - 40 000 years ago.

the Rock · Apr 13, 2008

I beg to differ I was looking near my backyard and found this car which has gotta be close to 8000 years old

EddieShoestring · Apr 13, 2008

Hi
i recall an archaeobotanical seminar (over 10years ago) where the guys had discovered a similar sort of thing-ie a large area of ancient woodland populated with hundreds of individuals sharing the same genetic makeup, effectively one tree. But the process was a slightly diff from that which Rosy described.

As i understand it-if you picture, say, a very old yew where the heartwood had died-rotted and the life was confined to the outer parts. Well this process continues until the living parts are separated by the dead stuff rotting away between them so you are left with a rough circle of 5-10 separate trees, or clumps of trees. Then the process is repeated ad infinitum and so the circle spreads and new circles multiply and expand until voilla! You've got a woodland.
Having said that i imagine that this process of spreading would take place alongside the broken branch/clone theory that Rosy outlined.
You can see how this would bugger up dendrochronologists (tree ring dudes) who like to count rings or match them up to a known dendro sequence in order to determine the age of a specimen.

eddie

Hans Blix · Jun 6, 2008

It's not a yew (Taxus), it's a Norway spruce, Picea abies. Here's the press release from Umeå University, with some interesting details: http://www.info.umu.se/NYHETER/PressmeddelandeEng.aspx?id=3061.

The dating pertains to the root systems only. The oldest living stems are a bit more than 600 years old. Root systems of almost 8,000 years are among the oldest in the world. Says Leif Kullman, professor of natural geography at Umeå University. (Link in Swedish: http://archive.corren.se/archive/2008/4/7/jnxf0a6mq1u5saz.xml.)

Worlds oldest tree

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