#pando

Pando, a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) in Utah. Though this looks like a forest of many trees, each tree is a genetically identical 'clone' of the mother tree, all belonging to the same 14,000 year old root system. Pando is one of the largest and longest living organisms in the world.

methuselah is a great basin bristlecone pine and the oldest tree in the world at over 4,800 years old! since the actual tree’s location and appearance isn’t known to the public, i decided to add the purple pinecones and pine leaves even though it’s very unlikely that he has any. however you can visit his home at the ancient bristlecone pine forest in california!

and pando is a very old aspen clone and one of the largest and heaviest trees in the world! aspen trees most commonly reproduce asexually by root sprouting, so they’re all technically the same tree

i love them very much :’)

IG: arrowmclaren

OMG!!!!! I'm dying! 🥹 This just gave me a thousand years of life! I knew it! The Pato/Lando is back! ❤️

A random thought came to my head last night...

This is Pando.

All of this? Is a single male aspen tree. This entire thing is a single tree with multiple stems sharing a single root system.

It is the largest tree by mass, and the heaviest single organism, weighing in at 6000 metric tons. For perspective, that's 20 blue whales in mass.

But what also intrigues me is that... well. It's an old tree.

Established in 12,000 BCE, meaning it would be 14000 years old by 2023.

By the the last Smilodons died out in 10,000 BCE, it would have already been 2000 years old.

And Pando is still a youngster compared to the high estimate age of this clonal colony of sea grass estimated to be 100,000 years old.

For perspective, when the last Neanderthal died in 40,000 BCE?

This sea grass would have already been 60,000 years old.

If human civilization (as in, the kind of organized polity that can be identified with things as "states" and "urbanization" among a plethora of other things) was established during 5000 BCE, and thus 7000 years old:

Pando would have already been 5000 years old.

The Sea grass colony would have already been 93,000 years old.

And considering that the oldest vertebrate, that is the Greenland Shark can live for 500 years?

All of human civilization encompasses the lifespans of just 14 Greenland Sharks.

I dunno... it just really shows that we pretty are a tiny blip in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history.