What are the oldest trees on the planet?

Answer 1

The bristle cone pine, one such specimin is thought to be appx 4700 years old, it's located in the White Mountains of eastern California, The U.S. Forest Service does not reveal the actual position of the tree, in order to protect the it. A bristlecone older than that one, named "Prometheus", was cut down in 1964.

Answer 2

Oldest trees
The oldest trees are determined by growth rings, which can be seen if the tree is cut down or in cores taken from the edge to the centre of the tree. Accurate determination is only possible for trees which produce growth rings, generally those which occur in seasonal climates; trees in uniform non-seasonal tropical climates grow continuously and do not have distinct growth rings. It is also only possible for trees which are solid to the centre of the tree; many very old trees become hollow as the dead heartwood decays away. For some of these species, age estimates have been made on the basis of extrapolating current growth rates, but the results are usually little better than guesswork or wild speculation.

The verified oldest measured ages are (Gymnosperm Database):

Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Pinus longaeva: 4844 years
Alerce Fitzroya cupressoides: 3622 years
Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum: 3266 years
Huon-pine Lagarostrobos franklinii: 2500 years
Rocky Mountains Bristlecone Pine Pinus aristata: 2435 years
Other species suspected of reaching exceptional age include European Yew Taxus baccata (probably over 3000 years) and Western Redcedar Thuja plicata.

The oldest verified age for an angiosperm tree is 2293 years for the Sri Maha Bodhi Sacred Fig (Ficus religiosa) planted in 288 BC at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; this is also the oldest human-planted tree with a known planting date.

Answer 3

Bristlecone pines - they're absolutely ancient. They were seedlings when the pyramids were being built. The oldest one is called Methuselah - but only experts know which one it is so people don't make souvenirs. There was one even older than that one, but to find out how old it was some complete idiot cut it down, to count the rings, and killed the oldest living thing on earth in the process. Nowadays people take a core from the trunk - a cylinder of wood all the way through, horizontaly, which enables them to know how old the tree is (by counting the growth rings), but which does minimal damage to the tree.

Answer 4

Depends on the type of question you are asking.

The oldest surviving species of tree is the Ginkgo Biloba (Salisbury adiantifolia) a gymnospermous tree commonly found in China with fan shaped leaves and yellow, foul smelling fruit. The trees can grow to a height of 40 metres and live for 2000-4000 years and are believed to have first appeared 200 million years ago, making them the oldest surviving tree on the planet today.

The oldest surviving living tree is the California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) named "Eternal God" that is 12,000 years old and is listed in the Guiness World record book.

Answer 5

Sequoia, particularly the General Sherman tree (oldest living specimen anywhere)
located in Tulare county, California
in the Sierra Nevada mountain range

Answer 6

I thought it was an Olive tree.... I am off to seek the truth!

This is what the Guiness of Book of Records state (a Redwood):
http://www.bigcushion.com/blog/2004/11/eternal-god-oldest-tree-in-world.html

Answer 7

The ginkgo actually has a contender for the title of the oldest tree species. The Australian Wollemi pine, "the Jurassic tree", is another species whose closest relatives died out c. 200 million years ago.

Answer 8

Bristlecone Pine

Answer 9

The biggest trees and some of the oldest trees are the giant redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens and Sequoia gigantea) that live along the Pacific coast of the U.S.

Answer 10

Bristle cone pine tree if you mean the oldest living. If your talking the oldest species it would probably be the Ginkgo.