Gumnuts - Could a tree be 10,000 years old?

Could a tree be 10,000 years old?

9 June 2008 8:48 AM

A fascinating story from the Australian Plants Society (Tasmania) website.....

At Mt Read in north-west Tasmania, at an altitude of 1000 metres, are several hundred Huon Pine trees which share an extraordinary legacy.


Frond of Mt Read Huon Pine *(Lagarostrobos franklinii)* (Photo: J & R Coghlan)

Located beside the small glacial Lake Johnston, all the trees are male and all are genetically identical, forming a clone. No variation in DNA has been found between the trees. There are no other Huon Pines within 20 km of Mt Read, and no female trees anywhere in the area.

It is concluded that a male tree established itself at Lake Johnston at least 10,500 years ago, possibly as a windblown seed, and has been propagating itself vegetatively ever since, so that the identical genes survive to this day.

Thus, while the oldest individual tree or stem on the site now may be one to two thousand years old, the organism itself has been living there continuously for at least 10,000 years – a ‘Methuselah tree’ indeed.

Read more at the website.

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Huon Pine

Comment posted by Gillian at 7:27 PM, 9 June 2008
I loved reading this entry. The fact that a tree can exist without concern about human kind for so many years! May it live forever!

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