The National Cathedral in Washington DC and the National Institutes of Health in nearby Bethesda, MD received some very special early Christmas presents this year -- seedlings cloned from some of the oldest trees on earth.
The seedlings were gifts from the Champion Tree Project International, a non-profit group that works to preserve, propagate, and plant seedlings derived from the largest and oldest living trees. Champion Tree's founding executive director Terry Mock (now a senior advisor) presented the gifts at the Land Development Breakthroughs Conference in mid-December in Washington DC.
The Cathedral received a seedling from the 4700 year old "Methuselah" bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), the oldest known tree on earth. The tree shown at right is similar to the Methuselah. The pine grows at an altitude of around 10 thousand feet in the Inyo National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Dede Petri, President of the All Hallows Guild, guardian of the Cathedral grounds, said the church is "delighted to have this wonderful sapling and we'll do our darndest to have it survive for a very, very long time."
(photo: Champion Tree Project Int'l) -- click on image for larger view
