The tree, killed by mountain pine beetles in 2021, surpassed the previous record-holder by 22 years
Credit: Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- A researcher discovered a 1,289-year-old whitebark pine tree, the oldest ever recorded, in Grand Teton National Park
- The tree, killed by mountain pine beetles in 2021, surpassed the previous record-holder by 22 years
- Whitebark pines grow slowly in harsh environments, making ancient specimens rare and difficult to identify
One man thought he was taking a routine sample from a dying tree. Instead, he ended up uncovering a piece of history.
Jared Friedman, a doctoral student in forest ecology at the University of Wyoming, was studying what causes whitebark pines to die in Grand Teton National Park. The National Park Service describes whitebark pines as slow-growing, long-lived evergreen conifers that grow at high elevations across western North America.
During his work in Paintbrush Canyon, a glacial canyon inside the park, Friedman encountered a particularly gnarled and spindly whitebark pine. There was nothing immediately remarkable about the tree. It stood less than 30 feet tall, and Friedman told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that its rings were so tightly packed that they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
Still, Friedman collected a core sample from the tree and later examined it under a microscope. He counted 1,275 rings before using a model to estimate how many additional rings were missing between the sample and the tree’s actual center. That calculation added another 14 years to his count.
Credit: Don and Melinda Crawford/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty
Together, the findings indicated that the tree was approximately 1,289 years old when it died in 2021, making it the oldest recorded whitebark pine ever found.
“It was a dream come true finding for me,” Friedman told the outlet.
The tree Friedman discovered had been killed by mountain pine beetles, a native insect that has increasingly threatened whitebark pines as its population grows and expands with climate change.
The discovery also set a new record. According to the outlet, the tree surpassed the previous record-holder whitebark pine, which was found in Idaho’s Sawtooth Range, by 22 years.
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But the tree’s remarkable age also raises the question of how whitebark pines can survive for so long in the first place.
Friedman explained that whitebark pines grow in mountain environments across an expansive range stretching from Canada to California. They grow slowly because they live in places where conditions are harsh, nutrients are limited and soils are poor. Some trees are growing by just two cells per year.
Credit: Wayne Boland/Moment/Getty Images
That slow growth can help the trees survive for hundreds of years, according to Diana Tomback, a biology professor at the University of Colorado Denver.
“Life’s not easy, but growing slowly helps,” Tomback told the outlet.
But while slow growth can help whitebark pines endure, determining just how old they are can be difficult.
“The problem is finding ages on these trees is not that easy,” Tomback added. “Most people when they encounter these trees don’t happen to have a tree core with them.”
“I would say trees this old are rare,” she added. “They’re just probably not as rare as the record would indicate.”
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