Chile’s Ancient Cypress Forest Holds the Secret of the World’s Oldest Tree

A giant Patag­on­ian cypress tree that has sur­vived for thou­sands of years in a for­est in south­ern Chile is about to be cer­ti­fied as the old­est liv­ing organ­ism on earth.

Tow­er­ing at 28 meters high with a 4 meter trunk diam­e­ter, the tree named “Gran Abue­lo” (Big Grand­fa­ther) is esti­mat­ed to be over 5,000 years old. It is set to replace the 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristle­cone pine Methuse­lah found in Cal­i­for­nia, USA as the old­est known tree.

“No oth­er tree has lived that long,” says Anto­nio Lara, a researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Aus­tral and lead mem­ber of the team study­ing the tree’s age.

The tree stands on the edge of a forest­ed val­ley in the south­ern Los Rios region, 800 kilo­me­ters south of San­ti­a­go. It is Fitzroya capres­soides, a Patag­on­ian cypress endem­ic to south­ern Chile and west­ern Patagonia.

In recent years, tourists have trekked an hour through the for­est to pho­to­graph what has become the world’s old­est tree. As its fame grew, park rangers were deployed to lim­it access and pro­tect “Gran Abue­lo.” Methuselah’s loca­tion remains secret.

The Patag­on­ian cypress is the largest tree species in South Amer­i­ca. It coex­ists with oth­er trees like cane­lo, plum pine and tepa as well as Darwin’s frogs, lizards and birds like the Chu­cao tapac­u­lo and Chilean sparrow.

Though heav­i­ly logged for hous­es and ships from the 19th to 20th cen­turies, some giant spec­i­mens remain.

In 1972, ranger Ani­bal Hen­riquez dis­cov­ered the tree dur­ing patrols. He died in 1988 while on horse­back patrol, keep­ing its loca­tion hid­den “so peo­ple and tourists wouldn’t find it,” said his daugh­ter Nan­cy Hen­riquez, also a ranger.

Henriquez’s nephew Jonathan Barychevich grew up play­ing among the Fitzroyas and now stud­ies the species. In 2020, he and Lara extract­ed a 2,400-year-old sam­ple, esti­mat­ing the tree’s age at 5,000 years using pre­dic­tive models.

“80% of tra­jec­to­ries indi­cate this tree is 5,000 years old,” said Barychevich. They aim to pub­lish results, spark­ing sci­en­tif­ic inter­est in the research.

The ancient cypress for­est holds untold secrets of longevi­ty, sur­vivors of a harsh yet mag­nif­i­cent envi­ron­ment. As the old­est known sur­vivor, “Gran Abue­lo” reminds us of life’s endurance and the time­less won­der of nature.

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