Old Tjikko

A special tree lives in Sweden.

It is a spruce tree. The trunk is not very old. But the roots are very old.

The roots help the tree live. When a trunk dies, new ones grow. This happens from the old roots.

Heavy snow can help too. Snow pushes branches to the ground. These branches grow new roots.

This tree is a wonder. It has lived for a long time.

Old Tjikko is a very old Norway spruce tree. It lives on Fulufjället Mountain in Sweden.

The tree is not just one single plant. It is a clonal tree. This means it makes copies of itself. The trunk we see is only a few centuries old. But the root system is much older. Scientists used carbon dating to find the age. Carbon dating is a way to find the age of old things. The roots may be 9,550 years old. This is older than the start of written history.

How does it live so long? It uses a way called vegetative cloning. This happens when the trunk dies. Then, the old roots sprout a new trunk. It also uses a way called layering. This happens when heavy snow pushes branches to the ground. The branches touch the earth and grow new roots.

For a long time, the tree looked small and stunted. This is called a krummholz formation. Now, the tree looks more normal. This change happened as the world got warmer.

Old Tjikko is a very special Norway spruce tree. It lives on Fulufjället Mountain in Dalarna, Sweden.

People once called it the world's oldest tree. It is the oldest living Picea abies, which is the scientific name for this spruce. It is also the fourth-oldest known clonal tree. A clonal tree is a plant that makes copies of itself. This means the whole plant shares the same DNA. The tree is a wonder because it has lived for thousands of years.

This tree stays alive through a way called vegetative cloning. This happens when the main trunk dies. The old root system stays alive and sprouts a new trunk. The visible trunk may only live for six hundred years. Another way it grows is through layering. This is when heavy snow pushes branches to the ground. These branches touch the earth and grow new roots.

This allows the plant to keep growing in a harsh place.

Two people discovered this amazing tree. Leif Kullman is a professor of physical geography at Umeå University. Lisa Öberg is a tree scientist with a doctorate. They named the tree Old Tjikko after their late dog.

They noticed the tree changed over time. It used to look like a small, stunted shrub. This shape is called a krummholz formation. As the 20th century got warmer, it grew into a normal tree.

Scientists had to use special tools to find its age. They used carbon-14 dating on the root system. This method does not work for the trunks of clonal trees. The roots date back to 375, 5,660, 9,000, and 9,550 years before 2008. The tree likely sprouted around 7550 B.C. This was long before people began writing history in 4000 B.C.

It is near the oldest age possible for this area.

Old Tjikko is linked to other famous plants. Coast redwoods and western red cedars also use layering to grow. Even people are using its magic today. In July 2024, an art studio in Stockholm worked on a project. They took small twigs from the top of Old Tjikko. They grafted these onto other spruce trees in Malmö, Sweden. These new saplings have the same DNA as the old tree.

Old Tjikko is a remarkable Norway spruce located in Sweden. It grows on Fulufjället Mountain in the Dalarna province. While it once gained fame as the world's oldest tree, it is actually a clonal tree. This means it is not one single, ancient trunk. Instead, it is a collection of genetically identical parts. The plant survives by regenerating new trunks and roots over many millennia. It is recognized as the oldest living Picea abies. It is also the fourth-oldest known clonal tree in existence.

The tree stays alive through a process called vegetative cloning. In this process, the main trunk may eventually die. However, the old root system remains alive under the ground. This living root system can then sprout a brand new trunk. The visible trunk might only live for about six hundred years. Another way the tree survives is through a process called layering. This occurs when heavy winter snow pushes low branches to the ground. When these branches make contact with the earth, they sprout new roots. This allows the plant to expand and continue its life cycle.

For a very long time, Old Tjikko had a specific shape. It grew in a stunted shrub formation known as a krummholz formation. This shape is caused by the harsh extremes of its environment. However, the tree changed during the warming of the 20th century. It began to sprout into a normal tree formation. This growth spurt was noticed by two researchers. Leif Kullman is a professor of physical geography at Umeå University. Lisa Öberg is a tree scientist with a doctorate in biology and ecology. They named the tree after their late dog, Tjikko.

Scientists had to use special methods to determine the tree's true age. They could not use dendrochronology, which is the study of tree rings. This method does not work for clonal trees because the trunks are too young. Instead, they used carbon-14 dating on the root system. This method measures specific material collected from under the tree. The results showed roots dating back to several different times. These include 375, 5,660, 9,000, and 9,550 years before 2008. Because of this, the tree likely sprouted around 7550 B.C.

To understand how old this is, we can look at human history. The invention of writing began recorded history around 4000 B.C. Old Tjikko was already growing long before that happened. Its age is close to the maximum possible for this specific area. This is because the Fenno-Scandian ice sheet only receded ten millennia ago. This ice sheet previously covered the Fulufjället Mountain. Researchers have even found a cluster of twenty other spruce trees nearby. All of these trees are also over eight millennia old.

Old Tjikko is not the only plant that uses these survival methods. Other trees, like coast redwoods and western red cedars, also reproduce by layering. Today, the tree is also part of a modern art and science project. In July 2024, an art studio called Goldin+Senneby began a new installation. They worked on a project at a hospital campus in Malmö, Sweden. They used small twigs cut from the top branches of Old Tjikko. They then grafted these twigs onto the stems of other spruce trees. This process creates new saplings with DNA identical to Old Tjikko.

Because the tree is so unique, people want to protect it. Nature conservancy authorities considered putting a fence around the tree. They wanted to protect it from trophy hunters or vandals. The tree remains a significant example of how life persists in harsh places. It shows how a single genetic individual can endure for thousands of years. Even as the visible parts change, the ancient root system continues to thrive.