The Ancients: Great Basin Bristlecone Pine


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The grove in which Prometheus, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva), cut down in 1964 at the age of 4862 years, grew, with headwall of Wheeler Peak in the Snake Range in the distance, Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park near Baker, Nevada: photo by James R. Bouldin, 25 January 2006




Before the invention of clocks
you were already an old one, bent and gnarled, worn smooth by the unrelenting winds

In the high air of the driest place on earth the recorded human universe passed
unnoticed, as you continued on, slowly growing

Until the day the thoughtless, hasty
junior geographer broke a drill bit while collecting samples of your living tissue

Your remains,
then, receiving what you had through all those dreaming millennia been spared, Prometheus

That final gift,
a name





File:Prometheus tree2.jpg

The cut stump (lower left) and some remains of Prometheus, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Longaeva), in the Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park near Baker, Nevada: photo by James R. Bouldin, 25 January 2006


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Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Longaeva), Wheeler Peak, Wheeler Bristlecone Pine Grove at Great Basin National Park near Baker, Nevada: photo by James R. Bouldin, 25 January 2006


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Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) on dolomite, in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California
: photo by Mark A. Wilson, July 2003


Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) in the Patriarch Grove of Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Joe Decruyenaere, 8 August 2010


Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) in the Patriarch Grove of Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Joe Decruyenaere, 8 August 2010


Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) (detail) in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Clinton Steeds, 5 November 2006


File:Bristlecone swirl branch-grain bottlebrush needles.jpg

Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva), showing tightly-swirled grain on branches, and bottlebrush needles on twigs, along Discovery Trail in the Schulman Grove in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Dcrjsr, 30 July 2011


A rocky hillside along the trail in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Clinton Steeds, 5 November 2006


View from the trail in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Clinton Steeds, 5 November 2006


Great Basin Bristlecone Pines (Pinus longaeva) in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest, White Mountains, Inyo County, Eastern California: photo by Joe Decruyenaere, 8 August 2010

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