EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Earth's Oldest Trees

Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva), Family Pinaceae
White Mountains, eastern California USA

Explanation:  It is arid, cold, and windswept here at over 3,000 m (10,000 ft) elevation in Inyo National Forest in the White Mountains of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California.  Before us, at tree line in this hostile environment, grow small patches of some of the oldest living trees and single plants on Earth -- the bristlecone pine.  

The oldest surviving one is a monarch that we call Methuselah, which was dated in 1957 from core samples of its rings to be 4,789 years old, and thus is now 4,840 years old in 2008 and still growing ... although reportedly another bristlecone pine that was felled in 1964 was dated to 4,844 years old.  
 

Great Basin Bristlecone Pine in eastern California's White Mountains.
When the cones open, the seeds are dispersed by the wind
or dispersed and cached by Clark's Nutcrackers -- likely an
ancient symbiotic relationship that benefits both tree and bird.

      
A lone Great Basin Bristlecone Pine standing watch over a
rock formation known as The Cathedral in Bryce Canyon
National Park, Utah.