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World's Oldest Tree To Be Cloned

Posted by timothy on from the to-make-fine-paper dept.

Pirogoeth writes "Scientists have taken seedlings from the world's oldest tree, a 4,768-year-old bristlecone pine named Methuselah, and plan on plan on altering them to make them clones of the ancient tree. Their goal is to study them to find the secret of their longevity and to see if cloned trees can survive in different climates."

7 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe not the oldest... by fingal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not confirmed but maybe the Fortingall Yew may well be older. Well worth a visit as it is in a very beautiful part of the country...

    --

    The only Good System is a Sound System

    1. Re:Maybe not the oldest... by fingal · · Score: 2, Informative
      Ho hum. slashcode doesn't really seem to like URLs with spaces in them and is closing them up. such is life. If anyone is really interested in the Fortingall Yew, then do this:-
      • go to the home page
      • click on big tree map in LHS menu
      • click on FORTINGALL YEW (second from bottom on extreme LHS legends on map).
      --

      The only Good System is a Sound System

  2. As if cloning a plant is any kind of breakthrough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Memo to all y'all city folk out there in /. land: People have been cloning plants since time immemorial.

    You cut off a little piece of the branch, plop it in some potting soil, keep it wet, and in a coupla months, la voila: It's sprouted a root system!!!

    Just about 100% of all commercial plant offerings are clones [possibly grafted onto a foreign root system, which is itself likely a clone].

  3. Re:i seem to remeber them finding a creosote shrub by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Informative


    > or something thats even older. BUt this is probably the oldest actual tree.

    IMO reckoning up the age of a creosote ring is a dubious comparison, due to its clonal propagation. An analogous argument would say that microbes that "reproduce" by splitting are billions of years old, which might be true in some sense but not very interesting for comparing the "age" of a microbe to the age of a tree.

    > Although i thought they found one in england that was older?

    I vaguely recall hearing about a much older plant as well, though I can never seem to find the story when the subject comes up.

    Given human nature, there's probably a lot of nationalistic spin on who has the oldest plant, so I always take "the world's oldest plant" to mean "the oldest one that has a good PR firm in my culture".

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  4. Re:As if cloning a plant is any kind of breakthrou by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It's called propagation, typically through cuttings.

    Many ornamental plants are done this way.

    Specifically, all of those pretty Christmas Poinsettias are froma single mother plant.

    They find the one plant that exhibits the characteristics they like, take cuttings, make more plants, make more cuttings, etc, etc, etc.

    Most everything you see in the Garden Center at your local Home Depot are made this way.

  5. Tree, bush, shrub by bananahammock · · Score: 1, Informative

    I guess not technically called trees (then again bonsais, which tend to be pretty small, low to the ground, are really a tree/shrub grown in a pot), however here are a couple articles concerning organisms (read shrub or bush) which may be older than the Methuselah.

    http://www.death-valley.us/article652.html

    http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1996/10/21/01.asp

  6. oldest plant? by mcryptic · · Score: 2, Informative

    a quick google came up with a 43,000 year old plant (Tasmanian native holly), which has already been cloned in order to save it.

    http://forests.org/archive/spacific/ausoldpl.htm