High in California’s White Mountains, where the air is thin and the soil is poor, stands a tree called Methuselah. It is a Great Basin bristlecone pine, and it has been counted as the oldest living non-clonal tree on Earth - over 4,855 years old. It was already a tree when the ancient Egyptians began building the pyramids.
Bristlecone pines survive by being slow. They grow only a fraction of an inch a year. Their wood is dense and packed with resin, so insects can’t easily chew through. Their twisted, weather-beaten shape comes from thousands of years of being scrubbed by wind and ice on a mountainside.
The U.S. Forest Service keeps Methuselah’s exact location secret so nobody can damage it. Hikers who visit the bristlecone grove often walk right past the famous tree without knowing. Somewhere nearby, this little tree has stood quietly while empires rose and fell - and it isn’t done growing yet.
