Bristlecones

Bristlecone Pine, Oldest Known Living Thing

Only recently we have learned that certain stunted pines of arid highlands, not the mammoth trees of rainy forests, may now be called the oldest living things on earth. Microscopic study of growth rings reveals that a bristlecone pine tree found last summer at nearly 10,000 feeet began growing more than 4,600 years ago and thus surpasses the oldest known giant sequoia by many centuries. It stands in the Inyo National Forest, in the White Mountains of east-central California.

Many of its neighbors are nearly as old; we have now dated 17 bristlecone pines (Pinus aristata) [sic] 4,000 years old or more, all in the White Mountains and 9 of them in the area we came to call Methuselah Walk.

Underpriviledged Trees Live Longest

At once it became evident that precisely under such difficult living conditions trees not only showed the expected high sensitivity to rainfall, but were able to live far beyond the normal life span of more "fortunately" located individuals of the species.

An 860-year ponderosa pine in Bryce Canyon National Park, a 975-year pinon pine in Central Utah, and other grand veterans gave us continuous tree-ring histories of annual rainfall much longer than we had once thought possible. After many years of sampling old trees throughout the West, it seemed that we were approaching the age limits for rain-sensitive dwarf trees in this region.

During the summer field season of 1952, an unexpected find opened up new possibilities. Sampling a stand of old Douglas firs above Sun Valley, Idaho, we found an alpine-type limber pine with one side completely dead. The core from this tree could not reach center but seemed to have an unusual number of rings.

That night at our camp below, I examined our sample more closely and was astonished to find that the 16-inch core contained some 1,400 years of datable growth rings. later we found that this limber pine was almost 1,650 years old.

But it was in the 1953 field season that the dazzling possibilities of new and fantastically long records or year-by-year rainfall in alpine trees became apparent. Prof. Frits W. Went, of the Earhart Plant Research Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, joined me on another visit to the unusually old pines of Sun Valley, and we spent most of one day in cutting down, for detailed laboratory analysis, the 1,650-year pine discovered the preceding year. The next day we piled much of it into our truck and took off for Pasadena, where I was working at Caltech on a year's leave from the University of Arizona.

On our homeward drive we detoured into the White Mountains of California, to check on a rumor that old trees existed there. Often such rumors had turned out to be unfounded. But not this one!

| The story continues.... |

Written By: Dr. Edmund Shulman
Dendrochronologist, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
Associate Professor of Dendrochronology, University of Arizona, Tucson

Information received from: USDA Forest Service, Inyo National Forest

Edmund Shulman (1908 - 1958) first ventured into the Bristlecone Pine Forest in 1953 at the urging of the Forest Service District Ranger Al Noren, who had heard of Schulman's search for old trees. Dr. Shulman was attempting to extend his continuous tree-ring chronolgy when he sampled some of the trees in what is now called Schulman Grove. His discovery of living 4,000 year-old trees and eventual discovery of the oldest living tree in the world was his reward for years of persistent research.

Dr. Shulman lived to be only 49 years old, but his contribution to the science of dendrochronology and our knowledge of the natural history of the ancient bristlecone trees remains highly significant. In 1959, this area of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest was named Schulman Grove, in his honor. The text in this handout was written by Dr. Shulman before his death as the basis for a landmark article on the bristlecone pines published in National Geographic, March 1958. It has been edited for brevity.