The oldest complex organism on earth is the bristlecone pine

Didn't like the movie, but the book was ok.

Yeah.

roger--We of the North let you NMers use all the creosote bushes that you need to barbeque

One use for the bristlecone pine trees:

First: cut down all the trees and dry the wood for one year.
Then into 2 inch by 2 inch cubes.
Let these dry for about a year as well.

Then: On the night before a planned barbecue, soak the cubes in fresh water, they will need to be in the water for at least twelve hours.

Prepare your chicken, beef or pork for the smoker and just before placing them on the medium hot grill, throw three or four of the cubes onto the fire. Close the cover so that the smoke invades the barbecue.

Enjoy.

Joe

That's mesquite. M-E-S-Q-U-I-T-E!

Well, okay, sometimes the shippers do get confused. Still smartin' over them old railroad ties we sent?

Oh.








Never mind.



Those railroad ties did give the porkribs a certain piquant.

I've always felt that the bristlecone pine looks as though it has invested some effort into survival.

see Roger, now youve done it.

Joe, we always use Giant Sequoia chips.

We only use those for Spotted Owl or sometimes Bald Eagle.

I do seem to remember that creosote bushes flared right up good in southern california fire season..
but I tried to look that up a bit in google, and see they are part of the desert, around the mojave, I think, that rarely burns, though more so lately. Hmm.

Will noodle around on that latter, I have to do errands. I seem to remember it was a positive thing to plant in the native plant area but not right next to the house in high fire zones, re fire department planting recommendations.

Mmmmmm, butterflied free range pesticide free no hormoned eagle with lemon and garlic and chili...

They caught my mom's eyes, too. She bought a few colors.

I've used them in designs in the past (have one big one in my yard here in north north; noticed some native ones at the plant sale that was going on when I checked out the Rio Grande Nature Reserve... but that only happens once a year, I think.

I know, I watched a documentary once on this, it was 5am and I ended up crying like a baby.
This living thing, that had been around I think 2500 years, silent witness to the passing ages
Now that's something holy.

Then, like you said, some f-ing douchbag scientist gets his bore stuck, so hey, what the hell, cut it down.

He claims it hit him once he got it back to his lab or home or whatever, and had gotten up to over a 1000 rings counted, the enormity of what he had done.

God, if i were him, and there was a gun handy, I think I would have shot myself without thinking.

It makes me dispair just thinking about how stupid some people are, even with all their pHd's

they showed on the documentary how now that cross section of wood is hanging on the wall behind some plexiglass in some crappy, out in the middle of nowhere, spoke filled casino/bar.

What an ignoble end.

I saw a documentary which gave the oldest living thing on earth as the creosote bush at around 12 thousand years, and since this was a documentary by the one and only Sir David Attenborough thats all the proof I need.

David Attenborough consulted the scientists at University of Arizona's famous "Tree ring school"

I'm happy to take your word for that farmerman point remains the same, if it is stated on an Attenborough documentary you can bet it's accurate, it's the best researched prog of it's type I've ever seen.

Many years ago in my home town, it must have been about 1965 because the whole thing started with wanting to turn the Civil War Statue around, wait,..... let me restart.

In the main city park of my home town there was for many many years a statue of a Union Civil War Soldier, erected 1867. He faced away from Center Street and looked out across the park towards the South, always on guard, blah blah, blah. About 1965, the Centennial of the Civil War Committee got the brilliant idea that it was time to turn him around to face North and be seen face on from Center Street.

Everyone said "Okay."

There was one problem. There was a big tree in the way. It was tall and kind of yellowish-green with big flat leaves that were spearhead shaped and had a smooth finish to it's bark almost like it had been varnished. It was about five feet in diameter.

They chopped it down.

It wasn't until a reporter from the Herald asked one of the workers what kind of tree it was that anyone had asked that question. He only wanted to put in the story -elm tree- or - walnut tree- or -chessnut tree- or something. But nobody knew. Not the Park folks, not the choppers who had chopped a lot of trees and certainly not the members of the Centennial Committee of the Civil War. So, of course, that became the story. "Mystery Tree felled in Center Park"

Leaves and branchs were gathered and sent off to the University of Connecticut at Storrs and everyone waited. The Statue meanwhile was turned to face North and there was a nice ceremony declaring that the Union had been preserved by men such as these blah de blah blah blah.
Someone, it was not me, tied a red bra on him the next night, but I digress.

Word came back from the scholars of Arborology at UConn, to wit: Beats the hell out of us.

That's right. No other known specimens.. Not a poplar, not a pinoak, not a mutant elm or chessnut or maple or buttergum or butternut or blackjack or a weeping jesus. Sorry. What else you got?

The paper published pictures of the leaves in hopes that someone else had one in a yard or had seen one in the Center Springs Park which is nearby. No one had or did.

My own theory, you knew I had one, is this. Some soldierboy returning from the South brought a pecan back with him and shoved it in the ground the day the statue was dedicated. Without any way to get pollinated the thing just grew and never nutted, and those boys at UConn, having never been to a tree shaking, missed it.

But I'm just making this up, hoping that it was a weird little lonely pecan and not the last of the Cambrian trees to breathe.



Joe(everyone just shrugged)Nation

Ha. excellent. Ill b et it was a Franklinia tree from the post Revolutionary times. These trees were real "hot" in the early 1800s. NObody knows what Franklinia trees look like anymore, especially UConn,Hell they still use man-to-man defense.