Oldest Tree In The World Was Found In Sweden And Is 9,500-Year-Old

Published 9 years ago

This tree is so old, your mom remembers planting it on her fifth birthday. “Old Tjikko,” named after professor Leif Kullman’s Siberian husky, is 9,500 years old. This Spruce, growing merrily in Sweden, was located by Kullman in 2004 and the age of its root network was determined via carbon-14 dating.

The root system is what allows this Norwegian spruce (this kind is popular as a Christmas tree in Europe) to be older than pretty much everything. In a process that’s called “tree reincarnation” by nobody ever, the tree can lose its trunk (it lasts about 600 years), and then regrow it from the root network. Tjikko has benefited from the global warming, too: it used to be an arctic shrub, but a hundred years of warming climes allowed it grow into a proud tree.

More info: National Geographic (h/t: boredpanda)

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