‘World’s oldest tree’ found in Sweden - April 21, 2008
blogs.nature.com
( Not exactly a Sequoia! )
Swedish university last week announced the discovery of the ‘world’s oldest living tree’, a 9,550 year old spruce. This is far older than previous record holders, says Umeaa University, which were North American pines dated to around 4,500 years ago.
Researchers found wood from four generations of spruces in the Dalarna province and dated these to 375, 5,660, 9,000 and 9,550 years old. These remains have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them, says the university (press release, news coverage).
However the press release notes that “Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones. ... Although summers have been colder over the past 10,000 years, these trees have survived harsh weather conditions due to their ability to push out another trunk as the other one died.”
This makes me wonder if there isn’t a classification argument here, and whether this really counts as the world’s oldest tree.
The 4,500-odd year old pines from America are actual, individual trees that are that old (research paper, wikipedia entry). They can be dated by the old-fashioned ‘counting the rings’ method, either by taking a core or just by chopping them down.
However, from the press release it sounds like this Swedish spruce tree is a hardy root system pushing up cloned trees. This would make it rather similar to the clonal species of tree that are already known, and date back far further.
In the US one clonal quaking aspen tree could have been around for 80,000 years. Researcher Jeff Mitton notes, “Most biologists agree that clones of aspen could be 10,000 years old, and some biologists speculate about ages in excess of a million years. But this is all conjecture, the ramets [clones] and roots continually wither and are replaced by new growth, so no piece of wood reveals the full age of a clone.”
This isn’t to say a 9,550 year old tree isn’t impressive, but set against the other contenders it isn’t quite the oldest shrub in the world.
Image: Leif Kullman |
