by J. R. McLeay
“That, and a few billion years of evolution.”
“Yes, the so-called butterfly effect. Tiny incremental changes, multiplied over long periods of time, allows evolution to create entirely different shapes and species we see in this little ecosystem called earth.”
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?”
“I suppose we should be thankful for that one random mutation long ago that led to our particular branch of the taxonomic tree. Otherwise, we might look like one-eyed green scaly creatures having this dialogue.”
“I don’t think I’d be quite as interested in kissing you if you looked like that!”
“I dunno,” Rick winked, “Mother Nature has created some pretty powerful reproductive impulses across the genera.”
“You better hope I’d be dazzled by your brilliant mind and incisive wit in that case, Rick,” Jennifer laughed. “Although now that you mention it, I’ve often wondered why nature doesn’t actually allow different species to cross-pollinate. Doesn’t it seem odd that with all of this tremendous variety and all the millions of different types of plants and animals out there—that they only mate with their own kind?”
“Well, it’s not as if they never try. Those powerful hormones you’re responsible for create a mighty potent craving when an animal is under its influence, and I’ve heard about some pretty unusual coupling attempts.”
“And yet they’re never successful in producing viable offspring.”
“I suspect it’s because if nature allowed it, the pace of evolution would be dramatically altered, with entirely new life forms quickly taking shape that wouldn’t have had time to acclimate and adapt to its surroundings and thus be more likely to die off. Nature seems to favor small incremental changes from one generation to the next in order to allow the organism to thrive in the setting to which it’s become accustomed but also to enable it to slowly adapt to the inevitable changes within the environment.”
As Rick continued his drive into the interior, he turned off the main highway north of Death Valley and headed east toward some dark mountains.
“Is that where your mythical Methuselah lives?” Jennifer asked. “I can’t imagine anything surviving up there. It looks even more forbidding than the desert we just passed through.”
“We’re still in a desert—just a more alpine one. We’re heading into the White Mountains, which lie in the immediate rain shadow of the Sierras. These mountains receive less than twelve inches of moisture per year, almost all of it in the winter. The rest of the year, the amount of precipitable moisture in the air is about half a millimeter—the lowest recorded anywhere on earth.”
“I believe that,” Jennifer said. “It looks so barren. And so dark—why do they call them the white mountains?”
“It’s certainly not from snow, at least at this time of the year. It’s because of the sun-bleached rock lining their slopes. The geology of these mountains is mostly quartzite sandstone and granite, which was exposed during the seismic uplift so many years ago. The relative lack of moisture hasn’t allowed much life to grow up there, and there is also very little topsoil. So we’re essentially looking at a big chunk of exposed bedrock. As we get closer and higher into the mountains, you’ll begin to see some white outcroppings. These are patches of dolomite, a type of limestone created under the primordial seas millions of years ago. That’s where we’re headed.”
“Is there something about that type of stone that your old tree favors?”
“Yes—dolomite is very low in nutrients, yet retains moisture better than the surrounding sandstone. Consequently, it inhibits growth of less hardy plants and provides a competition-free zone for our slow-growing friend.”
As the car wound its way up the steep mountain, the road gradually became thinner and rougher, changing from a two-lane paved highway, to a gravel road—finally giving way to a dusty path barely wide enough to support their vehicle above the sheer embankments below. Eventually, the track became impassable, and Rick pulled over at the edge of a dense thicket.
“Whew! That was pretty scary,” Jennifer said, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m surprised the road took us this far—there can’t be anyone living this high up, and there’s obviously no need for logging access. How will we find your tree from here?”
“The Methuselah grove was originally mapped by a curious dendrochronologist named Edmund Schulman way back in the 1950s, but satellite maps now point the way to the site via the nearest roads. But we’ve still got a hike of at least two thousand vertical feet ahead of us. You might want to put on your hiking boots and some warm clothing before we head out—it’s likely to get pretty chilly near the top.”
Five minutes later, Rick and Jennifer began their long ascent toward the timberline. Jennifer noticed the trees gradually becoming thinner and the ground cover looking more and more sparse. There was virtually no sign of wildlife, and the only sound that could be heard in the cold, thin sub-alpine air was their own heavy breathing combined with the crunch of their boots on the treacherous rocky soil.
“You weren’t kidding about the terrain up here,” Jennifer said between deep breaths, as she carefully planted each step for a secure foothold. “This looks more like the surface of the moon—it’s just a bunch of loose rocks. I thought you said trees needed soil to expand their roots and collect necessary nutrients?”
“It depends on what you mean by soil. Let’s stop for a little rest and take a closer look at some of these seemingly inhospitable rocks.”
Rick stooped over and turned over a large stone resting on the ground near a small tree. Jennifer noticed thin ribbons of green running like veins across its crevices.
“That doesn’t look like enough food to feed a whole tree.”
“It is if it’s a very slow-growing one. Remember, some of these trees live to be thousands of years old—their trunks only grow at the rate of one inch per century. If they put down enough roots with lots of hair-like feeders, they can find just enough food and moisture to thrive. There’s a whole community of photo-synthetic bacteria and single-celled organisms like lichen and fungi living under the surface of these rocks.”
“Nothing ever goes to waste, huh?”
“In nature, everything is food for something else. Eventually, they find each other.”
Rick noticed Jennifer’s breathing returning to normal.
“Are you ready to continue? We’re getting close to the summit.”
“Absolutely,” Jennifer declared. “I want to meet this character who can survive so long on this kind of diet!”
After continuing up the steep grade a little longer, they approached the crest of a hill and Jennifer suddenly felt a blast of cold air that nearly knocked her off her feet.
“Holy smokes!” she shouted over the roaring wind. “Where did that come from? I can barely breathe—and my skin stings.”
“We’re two miles above sea level, where the air is increasingly hypoxic,” Rick said, moving to steady Jennifer. “The thin westerly air is rapidly funneled up the steep mountainside to this plateau, concentrating its force like a wind tunnel. The heavy wind picks up a lot of micro-particles from the rocky sediment on the windward slope, which is pelting against your cold skin. Why don’t you turn in the other direction—I think you’ll be a little more comfortable.”
“But the view this way is much prettier!” Jennifer said, holding up an outstretched hand in an attempt to block the howling wind while admiring the glorious panoramic view of the frosted Sierra Nevada mountains across the valley below.
“I think you’ll find some interesting sights this way too,” Rick said, pointing to the east. “Come on—let’s see if we can find our special tree.”
Jennifer turned around and faced a gleaming white alpine bowl dotted with hundreds of scattered trees.
“It’s lovely,” she said, “but how will we know which one is Methuselah? They all look so similar.”
“We may in fact never find it,” Rick admitted. �
��Dr. Schulman made a point of keeping its location a well-guarded secret. He didn’t want any misguided treasure hunters or vandals harming the oldest living thing on earth. But there are some natural clues: look for the thickest trees, having the most exposed deadwood. Hopefully, at the very least we’ll find some of his oldest relatives.”
“There you go humanizing your trees again,” Jennifer chuckled, as she negotiated her way over the thick, white limestone plates scattered like broken tiles on the uneven ground. “So what’s the story with this particular one?”
“Methuselah was said to be the grandfather of Noah, in the book of Genesis. The bible asserts that he lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and if you carefully follow its chronology, he would have been born while Adam was still alive, around the supposed creation of earth six thousand years ago. Ironically, Methuselah died in the biblical year of the Great Flood that is said to have wiped out most life on earth.”
“Where’s the irony in that?”
“Don’t you see it? God purportedly created the flood to cleanse the earth of non-believers, but he didn’t want Methuselah to be killed with the unrighteous. Here is the one place on earth with the least water—and this is the only place where Methuselah’s namesake survives.”
“Intriguing. Perhaps he didn’t die after all? Maybe this is where he came to escape the flood, and God turned him into a tree to last forever. I can certainly see your fascination with this character.”
Jennifer turned around a knoll in the hillside and stopped abruptly before a group of gnarled and half-dead trees exposed on a steep, west-facing ridgeline.
“Well, if you’re looking for more biblical allegories,” she said, “I think I may have found some of your burning bushes.”
Rick quickly scampered up behind her.
“Yes,” he said excitedly, “these look promising. The oldest ones will be those getting the most sun, in the driest soil, with the greatest exposure to the wind.”
Jennifer shook her head.
“It still seems counter-intuitive that the trees with the worst growing conditions survive the longest.”
“It’s not only trees. Every life form survives longer up here than their counterparts at lower elevations who have more abundant food, water, and oxygen. There are also indigenous species of marmot, squirrel, and grouse here that live much longer than their non-alpine relatives—and all of them share the same unique characteristics: later maturity, lower fecundity, and longer hibernation.”
“What’s the connection?”
“Later maturity is a natural consequence of slower growth. Lower fecundity is a direct response to diminished predation. And longer hibernation is necessary because of the short growing season—which at this elevation is only six weeks over the brief summer.”
Jennifer zipped up her windbreaker against the bone-chilling wind.
“Judging by the plummeting temperatures, they must be getting ready for hibernation soon!”
“Yes, in fact I hope we’re not too late to harvest our seeds. Normally, bristlecone seeds mature in late September, and their cones open in early October.”
“We better get a move on then. What exactly are we looking for?”
Rick paused and looked around. There were scores of trees dotting the hillside, spaced roughly twenty feet apart. But he knew the oldest ones would have carved out a little more space for themselves on the slopes most exposed to the wind. All around him were weathered old trees, but he was looking for something different—something special. Surely Methuselah would stand out in some way, he thought. His eyes traced further up the hillside, where he saw a small stand of golden trees with spindly arms shining in the late afternoon sun.
“There!” he pointed. “That’s what we’re looking for!”
As they scrambled up the scrappy talus, they came upon a collection of trees that looked more dead than alive. Each tree had been blasted by the heavy winds into a tangle of gnarled and twisted limbs, with barely any sign of vegetation.
“These trees can’t really be alive, can they?” Jennifer asked incredulously. “There’s hardly anything growing on them.”
“That’s the beauty—and the secret—of them. They may look more dead than alive, but as long they have any needles growing, I assure you, they are very much alive.”
Jennifer examined one more closely.
“Why is so much of it dead?”
“Unlike animals, who are constantly replacing cells, plants add cells. Consequently, they’re always growing—until their size exceeds the ability of the surrounding soil to sustain their need for water and nutrients. But all this growth only occurs in one part of the plant called the cambium, an extremely thin layer of meristematic tissue located just under the bark. New cells form on both sides of the cambium each season—those on the inside form the xylem, which conducts water and nutrients up from the roots, while those on the outside make up the phloem, which transports sugars, amino acids, and hormones produced in the leaves.”
“Not unlike the circulatory and endocrine systems of humans.”
“Exactly. As the new cell layers form on the outside, those on the inside become redundant and turn into the dense, hard heartwood of the tree. When the forces of erosion or predation cause parts of the roots to die, so do those parts of the tree above the surface that is fed by those roots. Eventually wind and erosion wears away the dead bark and the underlying sapwood to expose its heartwood. These old guys obviously have a lot of wind and erosion working away at their roots and branches, given the thin porous soil they’ve found themselves in. Sometimes the only thing sustaining these trees is a thin sliver of bark and healthy sapwood running up one side, supporting a single living branch.”
“The ultimate manifestation of Nietzsche’s assertion: ‘That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,’” Jennifer mused. “So which one of these tough old buggers do you think might be Methuselah?”
Rick walked slowly through the small, aromatic grove, carefully appraising each tree. He was looking not only at the thickness of its trunk and the density of needles on its branches, but also the porousness of the soil, and the exposure of its roots to the desiccating winds. He knew the oldest and most hardy one would likely stand in the most inhospitable place, showing the most outward sign of wear.
Near the end of the stand, as if bowing in reverence, the grove opened outward revealing a lone tree in a clearing, completely stripped of bark, on slightly higher ground than all the rest. Its exposed wood had been sun-bleached and sand-blasted over the ages to a polished and gleaming caramel color, and it stood defiantly straight in a stout symmetrical pyramid, roughly fifteen feet high. Its branches had been sculpted by the strong westerly winds into a perfect corkscrew spiral, and it appeared to be bereft of any foliage. But as Rick grew closer, he noticed a tuft of green sprouting on its back side.
“This one! This must surely be Methuselah.”
“How can you know?” asked Jennifer. “It’s not so different from the others.”
“Look at the base of its trunk—it’s roughly four feet wide, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, I suppose…”
“That’s considerably thicker than the other ones we’ve seen so far. And at an average growth rate of one inch per century, that equates almost precisely to the age of the tree determined by Dr. Schulman from his original core sample: five thousand years.”
“But I don’t see any sign of life—isn’t it completely dead?”
“Look on the leeward side of the tree. See—a good, healthy-looking branch, with cones!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t believe this withered old thing still has the ability to reproduce.”
“Remember, plants keep adding cells, instead of replacing them as we humans do. Our internal clocks normally stop replacing cells after we’ve fulfilled our biological duty to raise young, but as long as these specimens continue to be fed and not succumb to fire, wind, or predation, they’re always growing and rep
roducing. The simple fact that this tree has survived so long means nature wants him to keep producing more hardy plants just like him.”
“Speaking of fire—how do these trees manage to avoid incineration? They appear defenseless against a lightning strike or a forest fire.”
“That’s yet another one of their amazing evolutionary adaptations. They’re made of an extremely dense, resinous wood that is highly resistant to fire—as well as insects, rot-causing fungus, and bacteria-causing disease. Plus, the rocky limestone ground cover makes it almost impossible for fire to spread from one tree to another. Even the trees’ needles have adapted an effective fire-fighting strategy: they last up to forty years, four times longer than other pines, so there’s rarely any dead ones on the ground to fuel a fire.”
Rick noticed a thin tendril of smoke rising behind the crest of a hill in the distance.
“I suspect the only danger these hardy old trees have of burning is from people who might chop them down for firewood. Their dry, dense wood would make ideal fuel for woodstoves or fireplaces.”
“Who would ever want to live in this God-forsaken place? There’s nothing up here but rocks and rodents!”
“Well, you have to admit, the view is pretty spectacular, and it’s a great place to come if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The air is clean, the sun is shining, and you can actually hear yourself think. I wouldn’t mind having a cabin up here myself.”
“I’m afraid you’d have to keep these whispering trees and sleepy marmots for company, Rick. It isn’t the kind of place I’d want to visit very often.” Jennifer noticed the twisted shadows of the old trees lengthening ominously around her in the late afternoon sun. “I actually find it a little creepy—would you mind terribly if we gathered those cones now?”
“Of course. Let’s see if we can find a good ripe one.”
“What are we looking for, exactly?
“There should be two different types of cones. The smaller staminate cones are only about a half inch long, and they provide the pollen, or sperm. Most of them will likely have already matured and fallen off the tree. The female ovulate cones are quite a bit larger—roughly three to four inches, with prickly edges. We’re looking for one that has its scales opened like a venetian blind. If you look carefully, you should be able to see some wing-shaped seeds on the inside surface of the scales, near the center of the cone.”