Hate to be a buzzkill but this isn't actually true. Old Tjikko is what you call a clonal organism. Imagine that when you got old, a copy of you budded off your thumb, and when you died and shriveled up that copy could go on living. When that copy aged it would repeat the process over and over. After 9000 years, the currently living clone would not be the original "you", but you could argue that each clone was attached to the last and the overall organism is 9000 years old. That's what has happened with this tree, growing and dying off, and a new copy branching off of the root system. This process has been going on for 9550 years, but the existing tree (trunk, branches, leaves, etc) is no more than a few hundred years old. The oldest individual tree is an unnamed bristlecone pine, aged about 5,065 years. Old Tjikko isn't even the oldest clonal organism - that distinction belongs to a colony of aspen in Utah called Pando, which has been growing for at least 80,000 years.

There is a big difference between anyone of us and his CLONE. I hope everyone understands that? . The article above is referring to a tree that repeatedly CLONES itselve (so the tree living now is genetically identical to one living more than 1000 years ago). Tree systems like those have been called MISLEADING & WRONG the oldest trees in the world, because the individual trees live only a few hundred years before asexually spawning a REPLANCEMENT CLONE . As for TREE CLONES, e.g. the Pando is a clonal tree colony in Utah USA and is estimated to be 80,000 years . The OLDEST known LIVING TREE in EUROPE was discovered in the highlands of Greece in 2016 and named ADONIS after the Greek God of beauty. This Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) is living in the Alpine forests of the Pindos mountains in Greece and is more than 1,075 years old . Anyone can see from the Foto of Adonis that he is over 1000 years 09_geo_ael...uropas.jpg Adonis1-58...25c26c.jpg

The tree can not be only a few hundred years old if the age of the tree was determined using carbon-14 dating.

9500 years and no significant growth? Either the tree is suffering from "Cretinism" (Congenital Hypothyroidism) or the post seems to be a hoax at first look. Alan Marble has a better explanation.

Yep, It's like TARDIS. You can't guess the age from the outside but a whole different story from the inside..

Sorry.....Bristlecone Pine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine

The maturity of the limbs down close to the ground are an indication that it's really old... maybe not 1000s of years, but Old.The top looks fairly young... and so I'm guessing that these "buzzkill" responders are correct. The stone field has protected the roots and also helped to keep the tree standing... and the sort of "circle of greenery" around its base is probably the extent of its active root system... something I have also seen in our regional conifers, as a mechanism that provides both insulation, mineralization, and "safety" for this species. We have similar 'bonsai' western hemlocks in the NW U.S.A.... trees 8m-10m tall and less than 40cm diameters. The limbs are always widely separated, and well-developed... gnarly, like little bonsais on their own. While thinning timber in the 1970s I cut one of these old trees down... and the density of the wood caused me to cut a short piece and take it home. With a good hand lens I determined that it was 218 year old @10cm. ^..^

Thank you Alan Marble! Common sense tells me there had to be more to this story than these shallow advertising sales fools want to take the time to explain even though the complete explanation is much more interesting.

North Eastern White Cedar

I have underwear older than that tree

Don't publicize the location. There will undoubtedly be some a*****e who will go and cut it down for 15 minutes of notoriety.

Yes the tree parts are not as old as the original. Can we say the genetic pattern is the same? If it has mutated over the mellinia, do we even know what the original species is?

What on earth made this man decide to carbon date this particular tree? We have hundreds that look like that in northern Minnesota.

I have a banyon tree bonsai thats a clonal tree its is 600 plus years old it died back due to a freeze here in Florida in 1972, in the book that was with the tree it said that it died back 6 times in 600 years then grew back from the stump or from a root shoot! Pando may be the oldest clonal but I think a fungus out west is the largest organism

Tjikko was the dog of Lisa Öberg, not Leif Kullman! Just as the dog Rasmus who gave name to another tree: Old Rasmus on Sonfjället in Härjedalen. Unfortunately I have only visited Old Tjikko, 25 km from my home.... http://www.oldtjikko.se

Algunos autores tienes toerias sobre la existencia de una red de comunicacion de las plantas, en ese caso, ¿seria capaz un arbol como este recordar sucesos importantes de hace miles de años?.

Given that the means of ageing this tree was C14 dating, and assuming that those C14 tests are correct, the indicated age would be that of dead wood, i.e., wood which has ceased absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. This would suggest that, irrespective of the age of the scrawny item visible, the age of the sample(s) C14 dated was at least 9,500 years.

I believe that C14 dating only works to find out how long an organism has been dead. It cannot date living things.

BS - cut it down and count the rings, I want to see...

lairs the oldest trees in the world mybe in africa or south america they have a good climat for trees to grouw up and still alive for years