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Oldest tree in the world
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The tree was a member of a population of bristlecone pine trees growing at the tree line on the lateral moraine of a former glacier on Wheeler Peak, in what, since 1986, has been Great Basin National park, in eastern Nevada. Wheeler Peak is the tallest mountain in the Snake Range, and the tallest mountain entirely within the state of Nevada. The bristlecone pine population on it is divided into (at least) two distinct sub-populations, one of which is accessible by a popular interpretive trail. Prometheus however, grew in an area reachable only by off-trail hiking. In either 1958 or 1961, a group of naturalists who admired the grove in which the tree grew gave names to a number of the largest or most distinctive trees, including Prometheus. The designation of WPN-114 was given by the original researcher, Donald R. Currey, and refers to the 114th tree sampled by him for his research in Nevada's White Pine county.
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The ring count of a section of the tree by Currey was 4844. A few years later, this was increased to 4862 by Donald Graybill of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. However, the ring counts were done on a trunk cross section taken about 2.5 m (8 feet) above the original germination point of the tree, because the innermost rings were missing below that point. Adding in the years required to reach this height, plus a correction for the estimated number of missing rings (which are not uncommon in trees growing at tree line), it is probable that the tree was at least 5000 years old when cut[verification needed]. This makes it the oldest unitary (i.e non-clonal) organism ever known, exceeding the Methuselah tree of the White Mountains' Schulman Grove, in California by about 200 years.
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Whether Prometheus should be considered the oldest organism ever known depends on the definition of "oldest" and "organism" one uses. For example, certain sprouting or clonal organisms, such as creosote bush or aspen, could have older individuals if the entire clonal organism is considered. Under this standard, the oldest living organism is a quaking aspen grove in Utah known as Pando, at 80,000 years old. In a clonal organism, however, the individual clonal stems are nowhere near as old, and no part of the organism at any given point in time is particularly old. Prometheus was thus the oldest non-clonal organism yet discovered, with its innermost wood over 5000 years of age. It is possible, however, that an older specimen exists that has not yet been dated. Bristlecones are notoriously hard to date because of their extremely contorted growth, and cutting of old trees is no longer allowed.
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Data reffer:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28tree%29
