Great Basin Bristlecone Pine

Pinus longaeva Origin: Inyo Mountains, California Improvement status: Wild Seeds per packet: ~12 Germination tested 11/2023: 87% Life cycle: Perennial High in the desert mountains of California, Nevada, and Utah, there live unassuming coniferous trees that are mind-bogglingly old. Among Great Basin bristlecone pines, the 1000-yr-old trees that cover the high-altitude southern slopes of many mountains across the region qualify as young whippersnappers compared with their elder brethren on the north-facing slopes. The oldest of these — a gnarled wonder in California's Inyo Mountains known as Methuselah — is believed to have sprouted from a single precious little seed in the year 2832 BCE, centuries before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in Egypt. Since the tree's location is kept secret by the US Forest Service, and the exact date when it sprouted can never be known (though dendrochronologists seem pretty confident about its age based on tree ring studies), there will be no one else