Hans Hillewaert viaWikipedia Commons//CC BY - SA 4.0
Your next birthday might have you feeling old , but it ’s nothing compared to these senior citizens .
1. Tree Tumbo
Hangs out in : Coastal desert of Namibia and AngolaAge:~1500 yearsClaim to fame : Boasts a fundamental spot on Namibia ’s coating of munition
Stranded in the thick of the desert , the tree tumbo looks like it ’s been ravaged by the elements and leave behind for idle . But do n’t lease the heap of tattered leaves fool you . The tumbo is a subsister .
The flora is a keepsake of the Jurassic period — and it ekes out its existence on a thin cartoon strip of domain in Namibia and Angola where rain is less than 2 inch per year . But the tumbo deals with the arid climate like no other sustenance plant : by using its two leaves to salute fog .
These appendage , which can grow to length of 20 feet , several time the size of the residual of the works , are the only two it will have for its whole life-time . As the leaves grow , the desert jazz whips them unrelentingly , and they finally become so fray by George Sand and the plant ’s own rough barque that they begin to look like a wad of tentacle . And that ’s how the tumbo survives : The sliced strands are better for collecting condensation from the daze that forms just off shore , when warm air from the South Atlantic hits the arctic cold current off the African seacoast . Meanwhile , the size of it of the tattered foliage helps conserve precious water by cover the hot sand and keep the filth underneath cool and moist . The plant does have one other trick up its farewell : A farseeing taproot helps pull extra weewee up from deep in the ground .
2. English Yew
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pay heed out in : Europe , section of the Middle EastAge:~2000 yearsClaim to fame : The Sir Henry Wood of choice for Druids ' magic wands
The oldest Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the British Isles and possibly all of Europe , the yew is steeped in legend and myth . For the ancient Celts and Norse , it symbolized death and resurrection . Later , Christians buried yew branches with their deadened and used the bough in place of medallion on Easter Sunday .
There ’s a rationality for the link between yew and resurrection . A typical tree diagram die when it ’s outgrown itself and can no longer support its own weight . Not so with the yew . If the yew ’s bole starts to waste or the crown becomes too heavy for the tree , its high branches can grow downward to take shape a new trunk , lay down roots when they strike the dry land . These branches can even maturate down into the quondam trunk , forming a fresh trunk inside the empty shell . As a result , figuring out a yew ’s age is a plant scientist ’s incubus . After hundreds of years , the trunks count like a coniferous Escher drawing , and it ’s almost insufferable to tell the departure between up and down , old and raw . Additionally , hollowing destruct the tree ’s “ ring , ” so scientists have to rely instead on growth rates and archaeological employment to figure out ages . Their best guessing put the honest-to-god yew at 2,000 years or older .
3. Honey Mushroom
Hangs out in : Pacific NorthwestAge:~2,400 yearsClaim to fame : Edible and pleasant-tasting , even C past its sell - by date !
Do n’t believe its unfermented name — the honey mushroom-shaped cloud is a cruel predator whose appetite know no last . Though it set off life as a minute of arc spore , the fungus grows quickly . Today , a individual specimen in Oregon ’s Malheur National Forest covers 3.4 square miles , or about 1600 football fields . You would n’t know from looking at it , though . The only sign of the banging fungus aboveground are disperse clumps of mushrooms that sprout during the surrender .
The honey mushroom ’s incredible size , along with its length of service ( four times that of most other fungi ) , arrive at a serious cost to its neighbors . Rhizomorphs — calamitous , rootlike organs — spread out from the fungal mass and , using a wicked combination of digestive enzymes and brute strength , storm their fashion into the solution of surrounding Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . They leach water and sugar away , killing the tooth root in the process . Once one food source is wiretap , the rhizomorphs gallop into new hunt ground , and the full mass produce with them . Scarier still , there ’s no shortage of food for thought . Malheur National Forest covers 1.7 million Akka , so the hungry mushroom-shaped cloud has plenty of room to inflate .
4. Box Huckleberry
Mason Brock viaWikipedia Commons// Fair Use
Hangs out in : PennsylvaniaAge:~8,000 yearsClaim to fame : So beloved that papier - mâché huckleberries are dropped to gang in the New Year
The Box Huckleberry has the dire luck of being both beautiful and rarified — in the early 20th century , few than 100 colonies existed . Because the flora was attractive , prominent landscapers and horticulturists require to use it wide , but trimming wild specimens was n’t great news for the special population . So in 1919 , botanists understand they had to bring through the huckleberry both from and for horticulturist — no small project .
As USDA phytologist Frederick V. Coville was researching the flora , he noticed something left . The entire settlement was associate by the origin . It was one giant huckleberry ! The plant life was reproducing asexually by extending rhizomes — clandestine horizontal shank — that grew into clones of the original plant life . Crazier still , the huckleberry was in a constant state of nonsexual reproduction . Coville and other scientists get that it maturate about 6 inch a year laterally , intend it would have taken some 2400 year to reach its 1200 - foot distance . An even boastful settlement , 6500 feet long , was discover a class later near Pennsylvania ’s Juniata River ; studies put it at an incredible 8000 years sometime , making the plant a coeval of the Copper Age .
5. Bristlecone Pine
hang out in : CaliforniaAge:~5000 yearsClaim to celebrity : make believe like a bear and hibernates in bad meter
In the brutal White Mountains of California , where the average elevation is 10,000 foot , there ’s less than 12 inches of yearly rainfall and very few nutrients in the limestone ground . Yet the bristlecone pine somehow manages to prosper . In fact , the worse the spot , the beneficial for the industrial plant . The seemingly lucky pine with better soil and more water raise ready and die unseasoned .
So , why do the trees with few resource live so much foresighted ? Partially because they borrow a hibernation - similar state . Some years , they do n’t even tote up a ring of outgrowth . And while these bristlecones look knotty and nearly dead , what their dull , resiny bark lacks in beauty , it makes up for in practicality . The wood is extremely resistant to disease and louse . Combined with a glacial pace of growth , these trees have raft of clip to hang around .
The most fourth-year true pine , sleep with as Methuselah , is a spry 4843 eld unseasoned . More telling , in 1972 scientists were astonished to discover a single , small pinecone in its branches and carefully harvested its 96 seeds . Despite Methuselah ’s advanced age , all 96 grew into sound trees , presumptively with very , very long go ahead of them .
