The fact that the location of the world’s oldest tree has to be kept secret encapsulates everything that’s bad about humanity.
There’s a story about that, actually.
According to the smithsonianmag.com, the world’s oldest bristlecone pine was a nearly 5,000 year old tree later named Prometheus. In 1964, a man named Donald Rusk Currey decided to use an increment borer to determine its age (a process that cuts a small hole into the center of the tree trunk, and is not intended to kill the tree). Unfortunately, the borer got stuck. He and a park ranger cut the tree down to remove the equipment, and when they counted the tree rings, they realized their mistake. Oops. This incident lead to better protection of the remaining bristlecone pines.
There’s some wiggle room about what can be called “the world’s oldest living tree.” The world’s oldest living single tree is the tree that the OP is referring to. Its name is Methuselah,and it is also around 5,000 years old. Since its location is unknown, nobody knows what it looks like. But it might be this tree here:
But technically, it isn’t the oldest living tree. Let me explain.
It turns out that root systems of trees can send up genetically identical saplings (aka clones) via their root systems. Like so:
Which means the original trunk can die, but since the root system is attached to other trees which give it nutrients, it lives on. The root system can theoretically do this indefinitely. So the tree trunks could be fairly young, but the roots could be large and very, very, very old. So the oldest “tree” isn’t a small grove, it’s a logic-defyingforest.
I’d like you to meet Pando.
This male quaking aspen covers 106 acres and is ancient. I’m talking an estimate of 80,000 years. The trees you can see are just “shoots” he sent up, and their average age is 130 years old. He is his own forest. If trees could talk, I’d love to hear what he had to say.
He might be dying, due to insects and drought (hmm, wonder what could have happened to cause that). A section of Pando is being studied in an attempt to find a solution. But in the meantime, we can enjoy him for his beauty.
Hollow trees are often more stable than before their cores rotted! “The removal of the tree’s dead heart brings yet another advantage. The change of form from solid pillar to hollow cylinder alters the way in which the trunk reacts to mechanical stress. It is much more resilient and stable. The removal of many tons of timber also reduces the strain on the tree’s elderly and doubtless somewhat decayed root system. The result is that an old hollow tree is often able to withstand a gale better than a younger undecayed one. In the ancient hunting parks of England such as Windsor, where trees stand out in the open, unprotected by others from the wind, it is by no means rare after a storm to discover that hollow oaks, four or five hundred years old, remain upright when younger ones, a quarter their age, have been blown over.” https://asknature.org/strategy/relationship-provides-nutrients-stability/
just moving along like everyone else 