Father Time
The hardy, gnarled, and beautiful bristlecone pines found in the White Mountains of California are the oldest known living non-clonal trees in the world, with the oldest identified one being over 5,000 years old. Over the course of a week of exploring the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, I found myself returning time and again to this one particular tree. I was fascinated by its twisting, barkless limbs, and the fact that only a small portion of the tree was still technically alive. You don't live for thousands of years without being a master of survival, and one of the ways in which these trees are able to live so long is their sectored architecture. Each root section feeds only the part of the tree directly above it, and as one root dies off due to exposure through soil erosion, only the sector of tree above that root dies. In the tree shown in this photograph under a brilliant sunset sky, the right side has succumbed to exposure and erosion, while the upper left reaches are still clinging to life.
- Copyright
- Joseph Priola
- Image Size
- 1000x1500 / 1.7MB
- Keywords
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ancient bristlecone pine, forest, california, inyo, white mountains, Sierra Nevada, tree, oldest living tree, limbs, twist, twisting, camping, summer, blue sky, hiking, oldest tree in the world, methuselah, sunrise, schulman grove, non-clonal, gnarled, grandview campground, bark, barkless, die off, die back, sector, root, roots, clouds, surreal, otherworldly, joey priola, priola photography, yellow flowers, red rock, sunset, puffy clouds
- Contained in galleries
- American West
