1000 year old tree?

Hey you Smarty GUYS...is it true that there is a tree in Greece planted by Hippocrates and is supposed to be 1000 years old? Plane Tree.

I'll let Guy answer this.

If it is true, then Hippocrates himself would have been over 1000 (yes, over one thousand years) old. I bet somebody else dug the hole for him.

yes, I thought it sounded rather strange. (or impossible)

Don't know that particular story, but there are some other trees in the Middle East that date back to the time of Christ. I recall olives being mentioned, and perhaps others. And there are oaks in Europe that go back 1000 years. Of course, our own continent has some conifers that have been dated back over 3000 years. And a small tree on Tasmania is said to be something like 45,000 years from seed, having persevered as natural cuttings that fell and took root. Aspen clones out West can be ancient, as can shin oak clones in northwest Texas. Some southern live oaks probably approach 1000 years too, although no one knows for sure.
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1676497&a=30963590&f=0

Guy S.

Guy, I have a question abt the Aspen clones. Are they growing away from the origin point, looking for a better environment or do they just occupy the same historic space and tough it out? Ken

The roots continue to spread outward at a relatively uniform rate (in most cases) but only into favorable environments. Then when the tops are disturbed by fire or whatever, they all send up replacement shoots (throughout the entire root system) because the sprout-suppressing hormones are suddenly out of balance. It's their adaptation to help them out-compete seedling recruitment from other species. By determining the root expansion rate and the average diameter of the clone, you can estimate the age. It works pretty much the same way on a lesser scale with sumacs, corkwood, sassafras, black locust, and other disturbance-disclimax species.

Guy S.

Thanks so much for that site...very interesting. I never knew trees could be soooo old. And look at you with that bur oak...aren't you a handsome devil.

The president of the Live Oak Society in Lewisburg, Louisiana, is said by foresters to be over 1200 years old. You can see her picture on the Live Oak Society page. She is a beauty. Just type Live Oak Society and the site will come up---(since I don't know all that hyperlink stuff).
Guy came to visit especially to see "Seven Sisters Oak" and he thought she is a beauty, too.

There is an old Oriental Plane at Hippocrates' school on Kos, but it is nothing like the necessary 2500 years old, an estimate by Thomas Pakenham puts it at more like 600-700 years old. It may be a seedling (maybe 3rd or 4th generation!) from the tree under which Hippocrates taught his students.

The oldest tree in the world is a Pinus longaeva nicknamed 'Methuselah', 4700 years old, in the White Mountains, CA; a slightly older one (4844 years, nicknamed 'Prometheus') was cut down in 1964 on Wheeler Peak, NV.

Aspen etc clones don't count - there is no evidence that they are all connected as a single individual. Saying one is 45,000 years old is like saying the Leyland Cypress you planted last year is 117 years old, just because the clone originated in 1888.

Resin

LOL, The President of the live Oak Society is 1200 years old? Dang, she must take some pretty good vitamins!

The story of the demise of Prometheus is so sad. How stupid was that! Resin, didn't you post a link to a online account of the falling of that old Tree. Isn't part of the trunk still standing there?

Hi Patrick,

Wikipedia has an article about it, with photos of the remains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28tree%29

Resin

Thanks, Resin, for the link. I planted a Bristle cone last spring in on a sunny slope of my 'Ditch' but it seems to have met its demise over the Winter. It was about 4 ft tall. Sob...

Clones may or may not count because they have younger stems than roots. But if they are natural clones (not cuttings rooted by people) and they have indeed been documented to be genetically identical (as have some aspen clones and the self-rooting Tasmanian tree) then they do deserve consideration. Methuselah merely has the oldest (known) trunk. Age may be computed as the number of years removed from sexual propagation of the organism in question, or in any other reasonable way one chooses to define it. If you find 100-year-old stump sprouts on a 300 year-old root system which was formed as a broken twig that fell to the ground from a previous tree and grew, how old is the tree? There's no single correct answer to that question.

Guy S.

And someone was grousing at me about the math!

The tree is no doubt an Albizia, which EQ will promptly slaughter.

I can't wait to watch Incumbent wrap his craw around that one.

And I thought my Linden tree was old....I still cna't figure out how to tell (even ballpark figure) how old a tree is. I mean without cutting it...isn't there some way to just guesstimate how old ?? I know it is probaby different with different trees...and how do you tell how tall a tree is?

Okay, let me see if I have this right re: clonal organisms such as aspens or gaylussacia. Obviously no stem is thousands of years old. And even the oldest part of the root system (root systems being easily the most dynamic part of the plant) is not likely to be exceptionally old. Therefore, although the whole organism indeed has been living non-stop for possibly thousands of years, now as genetically the same as when it first germinated from a seed, there is almost certainly no single part of it that is original material. Is that correct?

If so, this leads to a question I've had for a long time. As older parts of a root system die and decay, what mechanism serves to prevent rot from invading good roots in a clonal colony? Probably the same question is this: Say a large stem of an aspen dies, and eventually decays to below ground level, thus introducing rot right into large main roots, what prevents the rot from following roots to the next stem, and the next?

Scott

Levelheaded,

Yes, there is a way without cutting down the tree. Two ways. One is for an arborist to take a core of the tree. This involves a little bit of physical damage to the tree, but I believe it is fairly accurate.

The other way is to use a newer method which I cannot remember the name of but think of it as a tree MRI. They basically take an Xray of the trunk, and usually a ring count of sorts can be accomplished from the record. It will also determine if the tree is hollow.

Scott

Levulose:

For age: one must have looked at a lot of trees a lot of times, and it helps to have seen the rings on ones that are down in order to get an "order of magnitude" idea of age vs. size/caliper. And, even then, it depends. Site, climate, soils, moisture, fertility, exposure, competition, injury, species...there are myriad variables. Scott's post about coring devices is right on; I've observed this work and the device prints out a record that looks a lot like an EKG. The "tree MRI" is a nifty diagnostic tool as well.

For height: one simple way without a surveying device is...have someone stand next to the tree and take their picture (which should include the full height of the tree, by the way). Then, by proportion, you should be able to calculate with reasonable accuracy the height of the tree relative to the height of the person (or measured implement, like a big stick).

Example: Six foot four inch Smarty Pants stands next to much taller, say, Tilia americana of MD origin. From a photo, the tree appears to be 15 times as tall as SP. Ciphering that out, the tree should be about 95 feet (28.8 m) tall.

You can also make the same proportional relationship with shadows. Place a measured device (person, yardstick, very still pet) next to a tree (while sun is shining, during daytime where you live). Measure the shadow of the device AND the shadow of the tree. Compare via proportion (MAAAAAAATH anxious folks need not apply) to determine height of tree.

Example: Thirty-six inch tall yardstick (~0.91 m) has a shadow that is fifty-five inches long. The tree's shadow is sixty-eight feet long. Set up proportion with common units (oh, let's use feet; I'm tired of metric lengths).

36" yardstick = 3 feet; 55" yardstick shadow = 4.58 feet
Unmeasured tree = X feet; tree shadow = 68 feet

3 feet/4.58 feet = X/68 feet

X = (3 feet/4.58 feet)(68 feet) = 44.5 feet

That tree is about 44.5 feet tall.

I hope this doesn't violate DG's guidelines against excessive algebra (nor restrictions on shameless advertising/self-promotion), but I can make my known dimensions available, as well as rudimentary long division/multiplication, to those needing to know their tree's height.

I would require feeding.

How do you get the tree to stay still while in the MRI machine?

Thanks fr that link Guy. Very nice

V2, would you promise to stand next to the tree while I did the necessary calculations with both my mittens and shoes off. I might say that the nearest underpass is quite a far piece. Ken

Well you really are a smarty pants...I failed algebra. Good Lord I know as much now as I knew before. I thought maybe there was a simple way...the shadow thing sounds easy enough until you have to figure those horrible numbers. And Decreepant...thanks for the info. but I don't think I am going get someone to do an MRI even though my DH is a doctor...well now let's see HMMM.

To determine the height of a tree you can use a variable level. Set the level on 45 deg keeping the level at 45 deg walk back sighting up the level until you see the top of the tree. Mark the spot and measure from the trunk of the tree to the spot, it will be equal to the height of the tree. Hope this helps. John

Levilyla, there is another way to determine height if you can count to 100.

Extend your arm 90 degrees from your body. Measure the distance from the web between your thumb and forefinger and your eye and cut a stick that long. Go outside and, holding your arm extended 90degrees from verticle, visually align the bottom of the stick to the bottom of the tree, and the top of the stick to the top of the tree. This can be done by walking, hopping or staggering backwards or forwards to make the stick as tall as the tree. Make a mark at the spot you stand when the stick and the tree are the same size. Measure the distance from this spot to the base of the tree. This measurement is also the height of the tree.

Papeter....that sounds like the easiest...many thanks...I think I will hop this time of year. And thank you John..I will show this to my DH. It's something about my mind that just don't git it.

Hi Scott,

Hi Resin, Not if you're from the US of A. We tried to switch over a few decades ago, but it didn't take...

yes please use feet...

One caution with some of the height-measuring methods: be sure to figure in the height of the eye of the observer (unless you're lying prone while doing this) and the slope of the land.

Guy S.

Any way you measure is not going to be exact down to the inches, every way suggested is only a to find the height within reason. Never meant to scientific. John

Guy, neither the slope nor the height of the observer will affect the measurement. What you do with this method is to make make a right triangle with 2 equal sides. One side starts at the point directly beneath the end of the stick, one point is at the base of the tree, and one point at the top of the tree. As long as your arm is parrallel to the ground and the stick is perpendicular, when the stick and the tree are equal, the height can be measured. As OK John says, we ain't building a watch.

So far as the metric system, it is the only sanctioned measuring system we have. Way back in the 1800's the Congrss made it legal. The English system was never specifically sanctioned but always used. So in effect we have a measuring system that is approved but not used, and an arcane, complicated inherited system that is mostly used. Folks who grow up on either the northern or southern become quite bi-lingual, bi-measured, bi-systemic, bi-something. It took the Canajuns only a couple of years to get acclimated. But their politicians decided to pander to the rest of the world, rather than like our spineless cave-in-to-any-lobbiest -with-5-dollars-in-their-pocket "leaders".

Oh someday we'll figure out that being in step with the rest of the world can save money. I thought the little problem with the Mars lander was justice. When the altimeter said it was 1000 feet from the soil, the computer told the rockets it was 1000 meters above the ground, so it didn't slow down. SMASH! I find it astounding that our scientific establishment still tries to work with one foot in a midieval system based upon the length of a dead king's foot. In their case, they ARE building a watch, and their measurments weren't much better than levilyla out in her back yard with a stick in her hand.

Well, I said "some." In the case of tree heights we sometimes are building watches too. With the champion trees program here in Illinois, we expect all measurements to be pretty exact. Some of us use transits, rangefinders, or clinometers -- we do need to add the height of the instrument to the total computation, and allow for ground slope. With Carrjohn's method you also need to factor in the height of observer. With the shadow method you need to account for ground slope and lean. And for VV's photo method, you need to account for parallax, unless you're several hundred feet from the tree. For those using sticks and just making approximations, that's not an issue.

Guy S.

Okay, I got it~~~~I am going to so outside and stand by the tree (all 6'3 and 3/4) of me and then ask my husband to bring his ekg machine out while I extend my arm 90 degrees and hop backwards, mark the spot with my level at 45 degrees and since it is cloudy, not try and take a picture with a very still pet. I'll report back later with the height of the tree relative to my Rolex. Thanks for you help...I undersatnd now. Nancy

MOM

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!

good luck with that seems you truly do "get it" now

Holy cow Nancy! You're 6'3"! Now I am jealous! I always wanted to be tall but then again I always wanted straight hair but than didn't happen either. Hey, let me know how it goes calculating the height of that tree using a Rolex. I knew those ugly watches had to be good for something.

I am only 5 feet 4"... Just wanted Smarty Pants to think I was almost as tall as he. (And I don't have a Rolex).

LOL I am 5'4" are you sure your not a tad shorter then that???

NO

Let me chime in for a sec.....I have had great readings using a Timex glow in the dark,plus,for those of us with shorter trees,a ridgid Stanley 30 footer is a must have for your tree tool belt......(I like all of my configurations in cubits)....Dave

Thanks, I will wait until dark now...and that's a great idea for my tool belt..just let is drag a little.