Long-Lived Bristlecone Pines

Some Great Basin bristlecone pines in the mountains of western North America live for more than 4,800 years. The best-known trees grow on high, dry slopes and ridges in California’s White Mountains. Their slow growth and tolerance of drought, cold, and strong winds help them persist for millennia. Trees approaching five thousand years old were already growing around the era when Egypt’s earliest great pyramids were built.