By 2025, a 4,800-year-old bristlecone pine named Methuselah in California's White Mountains remained the oldest known non-clonal living tree, and the exact location of the gnarled, wind-stunted survivor is kept secret by the US Forest Service to protect it from vandals and souvenir hunters.

By 2025, a 4,800-year-old bristlecone pine named Methuselah in California's White Mountains remained the oldest known non-clonal living tree, and the exact location of the gnarled, wind-stunted survivor is kept secret by the US Forest Service to protect it from vandals and souvenir hunters.

Methuselah, a Great Basin bristlecone pine clinging to a limestone slope above 10,000 feet in California’s White Mountains, was confirmed at roughly 4,855 years old as of 2025, making it the oldest known non-clonal living organism on Earth. The US Forest Service refuses to disclose its exact location inside the Inyo National Forest’s Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, and rangers will not point it out to visitors who ask. Somewhere along the 4.5-m…