Unforgettable sensations arise next to the oldest trees on earth. After all, they are witnesses of many bright events that have gone down in the history of mankind. These extraordinary woody plants have been living on our planet for quite a long time. Some trees have a lifetime of several hundred, others – for millennia. According to official information, there are slightly more than fifty of the oldest trees in the world. Our list includes only the most famous “centenarians”.
10. Zen Sugi (2000 years old)
Yakushima Island is the birthplace of the oldest evergreen tree from the cypress family – Dzemon Sugi. According to biologists, he is about 2000 years old. The circumference of the stem part of cryptomeria is about sixteen meters, it is more than twenty-five meters high. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Dzemon Sugi every year. The Japanese protect the national natural rarity. The tree is fenced, you can’t touch it with your hands, you can only take a picture and stand next to it.
9. Agatis southern Te Matua Ngaere (2000 years old)
The ninth place in the ranking of the oldest trees in the world was taken by a coniferous representative of the kauri species – Agatis southern (Te Matua Ngaere), which is located in New Zealand. Its age is 2000 years old. The height of the “father of the forest” is thirty meters, the circumference of the trunk is more than sixteen meters. From the majestic New Zealand cowrie, you can build about forty wooden dwellings, and it is as long as a long passenger train. In 2007, the giant survived a hurricane and received quite severe damage.
8. Vuves olive tree (2000 years old)
The oldest Vuves olive tree has been growing on the island of Crete for more than 2000 years. Despite such an advanced age, it has borne fruit until recently. The three-meter-diameter trunk of an olive tree twists in a spiral and is dotted with hollows at the base, in which stray animals find shelter. The height of the old-timer tree is about 12 meters.
In 2004, the winners of the Olympics were crowned with wreaths from the branches of the Vuves, and later the olive tree branch became the symbol of the Olympic Games. Next to the old-timbered tree there is a museum dedicated to the history of this natural attraction.
7. Sequoyadendron giant General Sherman (2700 years old)
In California, in the Sequoia National Nature Park, a giant sequoia grows, which is called “General Sherman”. The tree bears the name of a general who participated in the Civil War in the United States. It is the largest and heaviest plant organism on earth. It has a very thick bark, which is able to protect even from fire. The height of the sequoyadendron exceeds 83 meters, the diameter of the trunk at the base of the tree is 11 meters, the approximate mass of this giant is 1910 tons. General Sherman is over 2,700 years old.
6. Chestnut hundreds of horses (2000-4000 years)
A unique attraction of Italy is a very thick and ancient chestnut tree with a strange name – “Hundreds of horses”. According to the approximate analysis of researchers, the honorable age of the old tree is from two to four thousand years. The Italian “elder” grows in Sicily and is famous (in addition to antiquity) for its significant, 58-meter trunk girth. He was honored to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The chestnut owes its name to a legend. The Queen of Aragon and her guards were on their way to Mount Etna. Suddenly a thunderstorm began. The queen and one hundred of her warriors hid under the giant and waited out the bad weather.
5. Fitzroy cypress Alerche (3650 years old)
Fitzroy Alerche – evergreen long-lived takes the fifth place in our ranking of the oldest trees in the world. The habitat is Chile (South America). It is 3,650 years old, and it grows in the south of the Andes mountains. In these places it is called larch, although it belongs to the cypress family. Representatives of this family have one feature – they grow slowly, but they live a long time. The thickness of the Alert is close to ten meters, and the height is seventy meters.
4. Yew from Llangernew (4000 years old)
The oldest biological organism of Great Britain lives in the village of Llangernew (North Wales). The sprawling yew is located in the local cemetery and occupies the fourth line of our top of the oldest trees. According to scientists, it is about 4 thousand years old. The diameter of the tree is 11 meters. There is no central part of the trunk (it has rotted away for a long time), so the tree looks like Siamese twins from a distance. Yew is unpretentious, can safely tolerate a lack of sunlight and develop perfectly. He has been living in Llangernew for so long thanks to new shoots constantly replacing and entwining the old dead.
3. Zoroastrian cypress Sarv (4500 years old)
The bronze of our list of the oldest trees in the world goes to the Iranian cypress. An unusual evergreen rarity of Iran – the Zoroastrian cypress Sarv – dates back 4,500 years. This majestic giant is the same age as the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge. He is the elder of the flora of Asia. The Zoroastrian Sarv has grown twenty meters wide, and it is as high as a nine-story house (25 meters).
Until now, this tree is majestic and beautiful. Many tourists visit it every day.
2. Methuselah pine (4845 years old)
Methuselah is the oldest spinous pine on the planet and one of the oldest trees in the world. Located in California, this name was given to her in honor of the oldest biblical forefather. 4845 years is the approximate age of the pine tree. The long-lived tree lives in harsh climatic conditions: there are almost no nutrients in the soil, rains are extremely rare. Because of this, the unique pine grows very slowly. Over the century , it has grown by only 2.5 cm . But it is the slow growth that contributes to its longevity. It was discovered in 1953 by the American researcher Edmond Shulman.
After the opening, many tourists rushed to the attraction, and everyone was trying to tear something away from Methuselah. This attitude almost ruined the pine tree. Now only the fact is known about its place of growth that the most valuable plant old-timer exists on the territory of the Inio National Forest Park, but the exact location of the tree is carefully hidden.
1. Old Tikko (9550 years old)
Old Tikko is the name of the spruce growing on Mount Falufjellet in Sweden – the oldest tree in the world. According to expert estimates, he is 9550 years old. Rather, the root system is so many years old, and the most unusual instance is only six hundred years old. For most of its life, the spruce tree existed in the form of a shrub, and only thanks to the warming of the climate it grew to five meters. Scientists were able to obtain such data using radiocarbon analysis.
The longevity of the tree is explained by its ability to clone itself. The trunk part of the Christmas tree could die more than once during this time, but the stable root system again released a young shoot, and the tree was reborn.
There are several other unique old trees on Earth that are worth telling about. The swamp cypress “Senator” received this name in gratitude to the senator from Missouri, who donated funds in 1927 to protect this natural rarity. Until 2012, the cypress was among the Top 10 oldest trees, because it is 3,500 years old. But there was a fire, and there was almost nothing left of the giant at 38 meters. Nowadays in the USA there is a clonal aspen grove, which is considered the oldest plant organism – it is 80,000 years old. The aspen poplar colony covers an area of 46 hectares, and there are 47,000 trees connected by a common root system. The total mass of the colony, according to scientists, is 7000 tons.