A Cypress Tree In North Carolina Was Dated At 2,624-Years-Old, And It’s Extremely Rare To Find A Tree Anywhere In The World Over 1,000-Years-Old
The dark, quiet, swampy waters of the Black River Preserve in North Carolina are where North America’s oldest trees east of California stand tall.
A cypress tree growing in Bladen County was dated at 2,624-years-old. The property where the tree was found had been purchased by the Nature Conservancy.
The ancient tree was first discovered in the 1980s when David Stahle, a dendrochronologist, professor, and researcher at the University of Arkansas, visited the Black River Preserve along with a retired biologist named Julie Moore.
Even back then, Stahle was sure that the cypress tree was over 1,000-years-old, and decades later, his hunch was confirmed.
Not only has the tree been identified as the oldest cypress tree, but it is also the fifth-oldest tree in the world.
“At the time, I figured [there are] 1,000-year-old trees all around here, which is extraordinarily rare anywhere but California and Chile, too,” Stahle said. “It’s very rare worldwide to find trees that are over 1,000-years-old.”
In 2011, one of Stahle’s graduate students wanted to return to Black River to study the trees. Angie Carl, a guide at the Nature Conservancy, took them downstream toward the cypress trees.
The ages of the trees were measured using dendrochronology, a scientific method of dating trees through their rings.
It is done by twisting a hollow borer into a tree trunk to retrieve a small, pencil-sized sample of the tree’s core. To verify the ages, radiocarbon dating is used as an additional measure.
ejkrouse – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Carl described the second day of going out on the river with Stahle in 2011 as the best day of her career.
When they reached the cypress stand and disembarked from the boat, they walked through the forest, counting the trees. She recalled that Stahle’s excitement was contagious as he urged her to count as well.
“Every 10 minutes, we’d stop and count, and he’d go, ‘Those are millennial-age trees! This is the oldest cypress stand in the world!'” Carl recounted. “I’m getting goosebumps this whole day. It was amazing.”
Moore’s first time seeing the old cypress trees had been decades ago, and she had had the same reaction of wonderment as Stahle did.
A friend who worked for the Forest Service had driven her as close to the river as possible in an old truck.
Before exiting the vehicle, she took notice of the ancient cypress. The amazing specimen towered over them, inducing a stunned silence from the spectators.
If there’s ever a time to be rendered speechless, it’s when you’re in the presence of a tree that has been alive long before the advent of Christianity and the English language, surviving over 26 centuries of human history.
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