Posted by:
Amyjo
(
)
Date: February 12, 2018 03:45PM
They live longer than we do. Some trees have been around hundreds of years or longer, like the Redwood trees.
Unless they are overcome by disease or insect infestation, or used for wood products, I assumed a healthy tree could live forever.
Beyond the Redwoods, learned recently that the oldest living organism is found in central Utah. It's a root system of an aspen clone that may have been growing there for over 50,000 years. Some scientists believe it may be 80,000 years old. It's all just one gigantic root from one tree that has produced an entire forest of aspen trees - all of them interconnected to the primary root.
Fascinating.
"The world’s largest and possibly oldest living organism is Pando, a Quaking Aspen clone in Utah. Karen Mock, Professor of Molecular Ecology at Utah State University tells host Steve Curwood that precise estimates about the age of Pando are not currently possible, but it may be many thousands of years old. But according to Paul Rogers of the Western Aspen Alliance, over grazing from deer and elk are now threatening the massive tree's existence.
CURWOOD: Quick quiz. Now what’s the largest living organism on Earth? No, it’s not a blue whale. It’s a tree, a Quaking Aspen. That's right, a single Quaking Aspen in Utah covers 106 acres of land and is estimated to weigh more than 6,000 metric tonnes.
Aspen trees flourish in much of North America, but in the western US a genetic adaptation allows them to propagate not by seed, but by cloning. By some estimations the Aspen grove known as Pando, that's Latin for I spread, could be shoots from a clone as much as 80,000 years old."
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00005&segmentID=7