Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: New oldest tree in the world found in Chile

Thursday, June 6, 2024

New oldest tree in the world found in Chile

Why do things grow so big and healthy along the Pacific Ocean high in California?

There's prana energy coming up from trees.

There used to be a time when Buddhism had the oldest tree in the world, the Buddha's Bodhi (Enlightenment) tree, a pipal or sacred fig (Ficus religiosa), which is still the oldest documented and attested tree in the historical record.

It may seem a coincidence that the historical Buddha had an "enlightenment tree," but in fact all samma-sam-buddhas ("supremely awakened ones") do. The Buddha spoke of buddhas of the distant past, naming their chief disciples and other features, including the type of tree they awakened under.
Finding the Mother Tree
This hints at just how important trees are. Save forests, save earth!

But a California bristlecone pine dubbed Methuselah took the crone for being far old, as proved by rings. Such trees do not even look alive, but are beaten down, shriveled, with gnarled bark and a few green sprouts that show they do yet live.

In a grove of ancients, the oldest among them was recognized.

This may or may not be her, Methuselah Pine.

California has it all -- the world's tallest tree (hidden in Northern California in dense underbrush, kept secret to avoid visitors who might damage it unintentionally, although the secret is out and maps to it exist). And there's the world's largest tree, the photogenic "General Sherman" in the Gove of Giants (or is that the Grove of Titans?), Sequoia National Park on the Pacific Coast near Yosemite National Park, which also has a grove of massive California redwoods.

The giant sequoia is the world's largest tree, and there are many such enormous redwoods.

Thank you, Bodhi Tree

So the oldest completed the trifecta, on the road to Sequoia Nat'l Park and Yosemite from Los Angeles, near the fork in the road -- along the California Alps (Sierra Madre range visible from the 395 Freeway) -- where one can turn right and plunge into Death Valley and Nevada beyond that.

Now the world will focus on Chile (until the next discovery in Tartary, the Tartarian Empire, or the realization that there are no trees left in the world because the ancient trees, made of silica rather than carbon, were cut down and are now mesas, flattened mountains clearly visible from helicopters).

In the distant past, "trees" were gigantic and made of silica

It's not just one giant tree. There are many massive stumps

Old California "trees" are cacti? (Joshua trees)

Of course, that's too mind blowing to even mention, so scratch that from memory, and let's go to Jeremiah Budin, who is not a Buddhist so far as we know, in the Latin South American country of Chile.

Though trees across the globe are under threat from the corporate logging and agriculture industries and the chaotic changing climate, one tree in Alerce Costero National Park in Chile (western South America, the real Down Under, the world's southernmost country) is believed to have survived for more than 5,000 years — and experts say it is the oldest living tree in the world.

The tree, known as Gran Abuelo (“Great Grandfather”), is believed to be even older than the currently recognized oldest tree in the world, California’s 4,850-year-old Methuselah Pine.

The newest oldest tree in the world

This is the Gran Abuelo ("Great Grandfather"), the oldest tree in the world known to science.

Why did Siddhartha sit under a tree? To meditate

Scientists are in the process of measuring the tree’s age in an effort to get it officially recognized as the world’s oldest. “It’s a survivor; there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long,” said Antonio Lara, one of the scientists working on determining the tree’s age.

Gran Abuelo, a Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides) was discovered by a park ranger in 1972. [And luckily it had its birth certificate stapled to it in protective plastic? How did the ranger know? Was it psychic intuition? Did the tree spirits talk like in that famous Buddhist tree story?]

Buddha Boy, when out of jail, should sit here

Though its exact location was initially kept secret to protect the tree (as is still the case with the Methuselah Pine), tourists are now allowed to trek about an hour through the forest to take pictures alongside it.

Chile’s National Parks Service has increased the number of park rangers on patrol to make sure the tree is kept from harm. More: Scientists make stunning discovery in remote forest: ‘There are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long’