Swedes Go After Oldest Tree Record

Not fair! Not fair!:

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The world's oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University said on Thursday.

Researchers had discovered a spruce with genetic material dating back 9,550 years in the Fulu mountain in Dalarna, according to Leif Kullmann, a professor of Physical Geography at the university in northwestern Sweden.

That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC.

"It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions," he said.

Scientists had previously believed the world's oldest trees were 4,000 to 5,000 year-old pine trees found in North America.

The new record-breaking tree was discovered in Dalarna in 2004 when Swedish researchers were carrying out a census of tree species in the region, Kullman said.

The tree's genetic material age had been calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida.

Spruces, which according to Kullmann offer rich insight into climate change, had long been regarded as relatively newcomers in the Swedish mountain region.

The discovery of the ancient tree had therefore led to "a big change in our way of thinking," he said.

The bristlecone pines in California's White Mountains had hitherto been considered the record holders.

California's White Mountains, east of Bishop near the Nevada state line, are a strange place. Very dry, even at high elevations, due to the rain shadow in the lee of the nearby, much lusher Sierra Nevada Mountains. Starved of rainfall, the plant community in the White Mountains is unusually sparse and simple, and time just seems to S-L-O-W...... D-O-W-N...... there....

Then again, some people have thought that creosote bushes of the American Southwest might be the oldest plants on Earth. The question there is, what exactly is meant by a plant? Apparently creosote bushes generate clones in increasingly-larger concentric circles around the original plant, so today you have large rings of bushes where the genetic material is thousands of years old, but where the original bush in the middle perished long-ago. So, how old is it, really?

I hate to see the Swedes competing in this race. Really old stuff should be an American preserve, right?