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 "While on the roughest ledges of crumbling limestone are lowly old giants, five or six feet in diameter that have braved the storms of more than a thousand years." John Muir |
The Ancient Bristlecone Pines of the White Mountains, California
2004 Don Macnaughtan
Go directly to the photo gallery of the White Mountain Bristlecones
See also my companion photos of the ancient bristlecones of Windy Ridge, Colorado
Introduction
These images were taken in the summer of 2003 in the Schulman grove of the White Mountain bristlecone pine forest. The White Mountains rise to 10,000 feet above the Owens Valley, just east of the town of Bishop, California. To the west are the Sierra Nevadas, to the east the Great Basin.
These trees are a genetically distinct population of pinus longaeva, the Great Basin bristlecone pine. For photographers, the White Mountain bristlecones are a jewel. Their wood is polished, buffed and twisted into remarkable patterns and shapes by thousands of years of slow growth. Every few feet, patches of bark cling to the limbs, transferring nutrients up to the cones and dark green needles. Fire has etched and scarred the wood; wind has eroded huge sections; drought, ice and cold have chiseled into the trees' flesh. But these trees are the toughest life on earth. Their wood is hard as diamond, and they thrive in the stark and arid conditions. Little else lives in the shattered, highly alkaline limestone on their hillsides except for a few seasonal herbs. Browsing animals leave them alone, and fire seldom burns hot in the meager vegetation around their trunks.
The oldest White Mountain bristlecone is the most ancient living thing on earth, at about 50 centuries - it seeded around 2650 BC. Known as the "Methuselah" tree, its actual location is a closely held secret. In 1972, a scientist planted and raised 96 healthy trees from 96 of Methuselah's seeds.
The White Mountain bristlecones are incredibly hardy. They endure summer drought, alkaline soil, thin air and harsh sunlight, high-altitude radiation, hurricane-force winds and bitter winter cold. They are twisted and gnarled, but keep growing about a hundredth of an inch each year. Most of their energy goes into survival and seed production. The bristlecones which give the pine its name are black, sticky with resin, and studded with tiny bristles.
The pines are a paradox: the harsher the conditions, the longer they live. Trees which have the "good" fortune to have soil and water grow too fast, and die young. The trees that are constantly stressed grow slow but hardily, a few centimeters a year.
The wind and harsh conditions create vivid swirls of bare wood, interspersed with the vibrant olive of the pine needles. Some of the trees seem barely alive, but still carry dense crowns of needles and cones. Patterns in the wood develop over centuries of slow growth and weathering. The wood is so hard that it is polished rather than worn by ice, dust and wind. Where the bark has weathered and worn away, the wood develops a series of shades from deep honey to stark white.
These particular trees, as well as being wonderful for photography, are of immense scientific importance. Their tree rings are very sensitive to rainfall, so scientists known as dendrochronologists are able to use the immense tree-ring record of the White Mountain trees to measure climate change over the millennia. These trees have provided the world's longest and most accurate index of climatic and environmental change.
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Building, 4000 East 30th Ave, Eugene, OR 97405 Questions or comments regarding this website can be directed to Don Macnaughtan. Email: macnaughtand@lanecc.edu. This page was last updated: 30 December, 2004 ©2004 Lane Community College |
