A really, really, really old Methuselah

[Alex Franke]

I just read about this in Science News... it's pretty amazing.

Short story: Sometime in the 1960's archaeologists were excavating Herod's vacation home in Masada (by the Dead Sea) when they came across a bundle of seeds what were carbon dated to right about the time that Jesus lived. A few years ago someone decided to plant a few of them and see what happened...

Well, apparently one of them sprouted! Methuselah (the name they gave the tree, of Old Testament fame) is now the only Judean date palm the world has seen since they went extinct a long, long time ago.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene..._biblical_tree

This just blows my mind. Hmmm... I have some really old Dragon Tree seeds from Madeira -- maybe I should sprinkle them around the yard. Anyway, don't expect Judean date palm to show up any time soon on your local "exotic lumber" rack -- after all it is a palm.

And on a related note, here's another one I ran across recently. Turns out there's a Norway Spruce in Sweeden that's been growing now for nearly 10,000 years. Yes -- that's FOUR zeros.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...dest-tree.html

(Just in case: Other than historical context and some religious-sounding words and names, there is absolutely nothing religious about this post, so let's not even be tempted to go there. This post is about really, really old trees and seeds.)

[cgallery]

Very neat story, thanks!

[TB Roye]

There are Pine Trees down in the southern part of the state on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains that are up to 10,000 years old. They are the Bristle Cone Pine and grow at an elevation of 10-11000 feet. They are out of Bishop CA off of Highway 395. Was up there a few years ago, very interesting, Would love to get a piece of the wood to use for a pen, but I would probably end up in Jail as they are protected and even the branches on ground are a no no. They get very little moisture and look all dried up so I don't know what the wood would look like or even if you could machine it.

Tom

[germdoc]

I've been to Masada--truly an awesome place. Building that fortress was an incredible feat of engineering. Helps if you have slave labor.

I have a Norway Spruce in my front yard, but I doubt it's that old...

[dbhost]

How on earth can anyone know a particular tree is 10,000 years old? Did it have a label saying planted in whatever year blah blah blah?

[OpaDC]

How on earth can anyone know a particular tree is 10,000 years old? Did it have a label saying planted in whatever year blah blah blah?

Carved in the side with the date 8000 BC ------










"Moses was here"

[Tom Slick]

a couple of old trees in the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron