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Comment by altec3 | Hacker News Reader

I'd always thought that the Methuselah Tree in California was the oldest living tree. Apparently there's some disagreement, as Old Tjikko is a clonal tree, meaning the trunks come and go but the roots stay living underneath [1].

So if you're counting non-clone trees, Methuselah is the oldest. If you're counting clonal trees, some Quaking Aspens are believed to be between 80,000 and 1,000,000 years old [2].

[1] https://allthatsinteresting.com/old-tjikko

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

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There's also Prometheus, which was older than Methusaleh but was cut down by people looking for the old trees. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree)

When I had ambitions for general interest blogging, I had an article kicking around in my head on the dangers of being a superlative tree.

Prometheus was the oldest tree, killed by a core sample.

Tree of Ténéré, the most isolated tree in the world, felled by a drunk driver. [1]

The Senator, the biggest cypress in the world was lit afire by an arsonist. [2]

Kiidk'yaas, a rare golden spruce, was felled by someone protesting logging. [3]

I also remember reading about the 2nd (largest, tallest, widest?) tree in the world being lit alight by someone smoking meth in its branches, but I can't find the source or name.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Senator_(tree)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiidk%27yaas

The meth example you're thinking of is probably The Senator, which you've already linked.

I think you're right.

The Kiidk'yaas one is bad-ass! I hope they make a movie out of him.

Edit: They did! [1]

[1] https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/film-review-hadw...

If you visit Muir Woods north of SF, they refuse to tell you which tree is the tallest in the park.

For good reason. People suck.

Well there's always a tallest tree in the forest, if the current tallest is cut down, another becomes the tallest, so there's no particular gain or loss over and above any other big tree.

Which is exactly the point: the park does not want to lose any big old tree, and singling out superlative individuals would make them targets in a way that the collective isn't. People out for the attention of attacking a superlative individual won't just fall back to any random tree.

My reading of the Wikipedia article re: Kiidk'yaas suggests that it was felled by someone protesting protesting logging.

Terrible. Reminds me of this Far Side cartoon.

https://jennafeld.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/tree.jpeg (Link to the image on a random person’s WordPress site)

> some Quaking Aspens are believed to be between 80,000 and 1,000,000 years old [2].

1,000,000? I don't see anything in the Wikipedia article referring to anything higher than 100,000. Was this a typo, or am I missing something?

I got that figure from the Norway Spruce article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picea_abies#Longevity

edit: I've also found this snippet: Individuals may reach ages in excess of 1 million years [1]

[1] https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/46/1/25/262587

There's speculation that this some yew trees may be of similar age to Methuselah, notably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llangernyw_Yew & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7505...

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