The oldest known non-clonal living organism is a tree called “Methusulah.” This tree, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) in the White Mountains of California has been determined to be 4839 years old (in 2007) by annual ring count observed by a boring.
The oldest known clonal colony is a quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) known as “Pando” and located in Utah. This colony shares a single root system serving 47,000 stems, occupies 107 acres, and is thought to be as much as 80,000 years old. Individual stems are only thought to be perhaps 150 years old. Theorists suggest that the reason Pando does not die is that it does not flower and seed – if it did it would die like the bamboo. They suggest that it does not flower and seed because some condition (such as ice-age environmental conditions) that formerly triggered sexual reproduction and subsequent suicide in this species no longer exists.
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