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Bristlecone Pine Sunset

Bristlecone Pine Sunset is an image captured in the White Mountains of California and Nevada. Bristlecone Pine Sunset silhouettes the oldest known living things in the world.

The Bristlecone Pine is a small group of pine trees that are known to be the longest living organism in the world. They can reach an age up to 5,000 years old. The gnarled appearance of the trees in the Bristlecone Pine Sunset image is representative of how these trees look.

The Bristlecone Pine grows in small groves just below timberline. They exist in mountain tops of the Great Basin region that stretches from California to Colorado. The most well known of the trees live in the White Mountains of California and Nevada and in Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada. They were discovered and studied by Dr. Edmund Schulman.

Due to cold temperatures, high winds, dry soils,  and short growing seasons; the trees of the Bristlecone Pine Sunset grow very slowly. The wood of the Bristlecone Pine Sunset trees is very dense and resinous. This characteristic protects the trees from insects and fungus that could kill other trees. The Bristlecone Pine Sunset trees are slow to reproduce and regenerate. It is feared among scientists that this slow rate of regeneration in the Global Warming environment may bring an end to this species of tree. The name bristlecone pine refers to the dark purple female cones that have prickles on their surface.

In 1957 the oldest of these trees was found in what is now called the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. The precise location of the tree is kept secret to protect the tree from vandalism. Nicknamed Methuselah the tree was measured by core samples to be 4,723 years old. The U.S. Forest Service established the 28,000 acre Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest after Edmund Schulman’s death. The Schulman Memorial Grove was named to honor his contribution to the world in studying these trees.

Bristlecone Pine Sunset was taken in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest at the end of a day of experiencing the world’s oldest living organisms.