Howdy! Another wood pile puzzler for my favorite firewood friends. What wood is this? How long is it known to live? Answer(s) at bottom. What wood is this under my finger? Take a look at those tiny rings - as you can see it grows very, very slowly. Grows at high elevations, could be a Juniper, but... Looking closely, it has needles, some sort of conifer, check, but not a Juniper. Ok, has cones, and is some sort of pine... yep. Is often very contorted. Will sacrifice a large portion of it's limbs to endure drought... (Yes, I took this picture!) Ok, last chance to guess - here comes the answer.... Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. Among the world's longest living organisms. (Pinus longaeva) The oldest ones known are named with names like Prometheus with 4,789 annual rings and Methuselah, which is alive and 5,065 years old. There are almost certainly older ones too that have not yet been identified. Did you guess right? Or did you already know? Hope you had fun - I enjoyed seeing them in person - these are growing in the White Mountains of extreme eastern California - the Sierra Mountains are the snow-caps behind my head (above). That crazy Cash LaRue has Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata) which grows in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
Actually, I did guess correctly! I'm not too good at identifying species but I think I remember Backwoods Savage telling me he planted that one! Hope you're in a good mood Dennis....
Some really nice pics. Even though the earth is thousands and thousands of years old the oldest living thing happens to be only 5100 years old. Those were some really small growth rings no doubt because of the environment it exists in.
No Nope Missing a couple most important one still haven’t made to Dennis house… it’s on bucket list!!! Am going to
I didn't know looking at the rings but as soon as I saw the first picture of it I knew. I'm curious, where did you get those slabs with the rings?
Hi Chris, That is just the end of a log lying along the trail. Pretty weathered. Below is a stock photo of an actual slab taken from the Promethius Bristlecone pine, many slabs of which exist at the Tree Ring Lab at the University of Arizona at Tucson.
Amazing trees. It's mind boggling to think they've lived all through what we refer to as modern history. Did you see any super small ones that might be just a few years old? You should look up what it would take to get one of those pine cone seeds to sprout and plant one.
