Bristlecones

"But Don't Touch General Sherman!"

Of course, Sequoia gigantea--the "big tree" of California--has long been considered the oldest living thing. Its tall relative, the coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens--despite its ever-living name--attains ages only roughly half or two-thirds as great, with a maximum around 2,200 years.

More than 45 years ago the rings on hundreds of giant sequoia stumps throughout the heavily lumbered Sierra Nevada forest were measured by Ellsworth Huntington and his crew of woodsmen. Three thousand or more annual rings could be counted on four of the stumps.

Later, more exact ages were derived after a detailed cross-comparison of the rings in these trees by Dr. Douglass. On the oldest one, which had been cut down in 1892, the earliest ring dated at 1307 B.C. This oldest precisely dated sequoia must have sprouted about 1320 B.C.; it was 3,212 years old.

And what of the large standing sequoias? Some years ago I got permission from Col. John R. White, then superintendent of Sequoia National Park, to take increment borings in living sequoia trees. "You're welcome to sample any other tree in the park," he said, "but don't touch General Sherman!" Since the standard borer is barely long enough to get through General's bark, this was not a serious restriction. Besides, Dr. Douglass had studied this tree's growth by sampling burned areas in it decades ago, and had estimated its age at possibly 3,500 years.

Sequoia May Win in the End

Our borings indicated that in this species the biggest trees are likely to be the oldest. Until deep borings are made in the biggest ones, we will not know whether any living sequoia is older than the oldest that have been cut.

In potential life span the giant sequoia seems to come back into first place, for the General Sherman Tree and most other mammoth sequoias appear to have little or no decay. Barring accidents like out-of-balance toppling or a series of great fires, mature sequoias living now could well be living still, in their protected parks, in A.D. 5000.

By that time the oldest living bristlecone pines will surely have long since gone. For theese oldest pines have in a certain sense been dying for two millenniums or more. They now possess only a narrow strip of their once complete bark and the growing tissue beneath it. True, the dying-back of this life line is exceedingly slow, and several of them seem good for at least five centuries still. But they probably cannot live much more.

Although trees of various other species throughout the world have been estimated to reach ages in the thousands of years, none has yet been definitely verified by careful study to be in the 3,000 year class.

| 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.

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