National Love a Tree Day on May 16 is a twenty-four hour period to apprise all the existence ’s trees , but a bald cypress latterly name in North Carolina is especially deserving of recognition . AsLive Sciencereports , scientists go steady the tree to 2624 age erstwhile , make it one the oldest exist non - clonal trees on Earth .
For theirstudy , recently published in the journalEnvironmental Research Communications , a team of research worker studied the rings of trees in North Carolina ’s Black River swampland to find out more about clime chronicle in the eastern United States . Bald cypress are known to have telling life-time , but after analyzing specimen in the Black River ’s Three Sisters Swamp , an orbit that ’s renowned for its long - live on trees , the scientist let on that cypress can grow to be even older than antecedently believed . The 2624 - yr - old cypress tree tree diagram they found predates theGreat Wall of Chinaand the Roman Empire . Other remarkably old trees , including a 2088 - year - old cypress tree , were also identify in the same grove .
The North Carolina cypresses are old , but there are other eccentric of tree that can grow to be much old . Clonal tress are genetically selfsame flora that regurgitate asexually from a single ancestor . Old Tjikko , a clonal tree in Sweden , has a root organization that date back 9550 years .
Despite all that North Carolina ’s bald cypress tree have abide , their lives are under threat . The swamp where the 2624 - yr - old tree diagram stands is place just 6.5 feet above sea level , which means that floods driven by climate change could damage its habitat . And though the grove is in a protected sphere , industrial overspill and logging that ’s happen nearby could bear upon the trees ' health . North Carolina is consider establishing a Black River State Park where the trees maturate to further protect the ancient natural wonder .
[ h / tLive Science ]
