The Methuselah tree, with its strange twisted body, is said to be the oldest tree in the world that still exists today. It appeared thousands of years ago, even before the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids.
The journey to find the world’s oldest living tree
Deep in the White Mountains of eastern California, USA, is where the world’s oldest tree still exists. Unlike the trees that surround it and are hardly mentioned by name like every other tree that exists on the planet, it is the Methuselah tree.
Portrait of American researcher Edmund Schulman
In the early 1950s, a researcher named Edmund Schulman from the University of Arizona, USA, set out to search for giant trees that had never been discovered. He set foot in national parks, deserts and many strange lands to discover plants that are affected by weather changes and have the ability to adapt.
In 1953, a ranger at Inyo National Park, USA, told Schulman the story of a thousand-year-old tree, hidden deep in the White Mountains in California. This researcher believes he will uncover the secrets.
On the first expedition, Schulman and his assistant climbed the White Mountains and took a research sample of a bristlecone pine tree to check the age. To their surprise, this pine tree was more than 1500 years old. This discovery inspired the researcher to return to the mountains again and again to search for traces of the oldest tree.
When he returned later, Schulman collected more data and took more samples from a number of other tree species.
The giant tree is older than the Egyptian Pyramids
In 1957, Schulman and his assistant Tom Harlan examined a tree sample and discovered it was 4,789 years old. Thus, it is estimated that this tree germinated around 2832 BC, appearing before the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids. That is a bristlecone pine.
This ancient tree grows in poor soil, almost buried under snow all year round. To adapt to harsh weather, trees grow more slowly with very thick wood fibers that help resist insects and pests.
Researcher Schulman decided to name this pine tree Methuselah, after the man with the longest lifespan in the Bible. The character Methuselah only lived to be 969 years old, and this pine tree was 4,789 years old when discovered in 1957.
Guinness World Records has recognized this as the oldest tree in the world, still clinging to its original roots where it grew more than 4,800 years ago. To preserve and preserve the most ancient tree species, the location of the Methuselah tree remains a secret and is not disclosed to the public.
Nowadays, many tourists go to Inyo National Park to search for the Methuselah tree, but no information has been confirmed. Even local authorities discourage this search.
