notforsale

There’s not much doubt that Scandinavians are hardy folks, but apparently that characteristic goes all the way down to the botanical level: Did you know the oldest tree in the world is Sweden’s Old Tjikko? The 9,500-year-old tree is a Norwegian spruce growing at an altitude of 2,985 feet on Fulufjället Mountain in the Dalarna province, and is shown in a photo by Rachel Sussman.

According to an article on DigitalJournal.com, the ancient tree, which was discovered by geologist Leif Kullman in 2004 and named after his dead dog, is only 16 feet high (http://tinyurl.com/tjikko9500). Kullman says that Tjikko took root and sprouted at the end of the last Ice Age, when an ice bridge still connected England and Europe.

Actually, the part of the tree that is above ground is only a few hundred years old — it’s the root system that makes Old Tjikko the “oldest known individual vegetatively cloned tree,” which has been verified by carbon dating.

“What is amazing is that the trunk of the tree may die and regrow many times,” the article says, “but the root system remains alive and intact, sprouting a new tree when the old one dies. Another really neat survival tactic occurs in the winter when heavy snows push the tree’s lower branches to the ground where they take root, helping them to survive to live again the following year.” Old Tjikko would make Darwin proud.

— Elleda Wilson