Old, Older, Oldest? President's Message - September 2025 by Margaret Rhyne

If you google “oldest living organism” you will get a surprisingly long list of candidates. Among these are some rather “otherworldly” life forms including a glass sea sponge growing in the East China Sea (estimated age 11,000 years); a green blob-like flowering shrub that grows in the Andes (estimated age 3,000 years); another blob like organism, Anoxycalyx joubini, a whitish sponge that grows in the icy waters of Antarctica (estimated age 15,000 years); and winning the prize amongst this list of aged organism is an underwater meadow of Neptune’s sea grass growing near Spain in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated age - 100,000 years! If your question is about oldest organism is limited to individual animals (as far as scientists have been able to document) then two that make this list are a tortoise and a sea bird. “Johnathan” is a Seychelles giant tortoise who was born in the Seychelles in 1832 and subsequently brought to the island of St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic, in 1882. Seychelle giants are a subspecies of the Aldabra giant tortoise. They resemble the more famous Galapagos tortoise but are slightly smaller. Jonathan is alive and healthy, strolling the grounds of the governor’s island estate with other giant tortoises. “Wisdom,” a Laysan albatross, is at least 70 years old and the world’s oldest confirmed bird in the wild. She was banded in 1956 and migrates in the Autumn to Midway Atoll where she has laid an estimated 30 – 36 eggs in her lifetime. She has traveled more than three million miles since she was tagged, a distance that is more than 6 times the length of a round-trip journey to the moon and during her long life, survived a tsunami. It is not an animal however, but a long-lived plant that got me started on the quest to identify “old, older and oldest.” A number of years ago I learned about a phenomenon called a “creosote ring.” This living ring is formed from a single creosote bush (Larrea tridentata). Then as the creosote ages and gradually dies, new stems sprout from the outer edges of its root system. Over centuries, this “clonal” reproductive strategy results in a living ring of creosote bushes that are genetically identical to the “parent” bush and consequently regarded as one organism. In the early 1970s, the creosote clone considered to be the oldest was identified from aerial photographs by scientists from U.C. Riverside and named the “King Clone.” Originally, its location was kept a secret as the area was unprotected. But now, thanks to the actions of Boron Desert Empire Gardening Club, the Nature Conservancy and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, it is now protected as part of the 488-acre King Clone Ecological Reserve near Yucca Valley, California. Also in the Mojave Desert are clonal rings of Mojave yucca (yucca schidigera). The Mojave yucca, like creosote bushes and Joshua trees, can sprout from seeds or can clone itself by rhizome extension. Yucca rings can be as large as 20 feet in diameter and as many as 130 stalks. Some yucca rings are thought to be at least 2,100 years old. Another organism that owes its longevity to clonal reproduction is “Pando,” a clonal quaking aspen stand in Colorado that may or may not be older than King Clone. 300 hundred miles north of King Clone and many feet higher in elevation is perhaps the oldest living organism on earth that reproduces from seed. East of Big Pine, California, is the famous Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to “Methuselah.” Tree ring dates reveal that this bristlecone pine started from a seed that germinated more than 4,848 years ago. Another nearby unnamed bristlecone is more than 5,067 years old. According to the National Forest Foundation, “They are the two oldest non-clonal organisms on Earth (meaning they don’t reproduce through cloning, making their trunks as old as their roots).” Bristlecone pines grow in just a few places in California’s far eastern White Mountains and in a few places in Nevada. You can hike from the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center (13 miles east of Big Pine on Hwy 168) to the grove where these ancients grow, but to protect them, neither are not identified. Links: Where to See the Oldest Living Things on Earth Ask a Biologist King Clone Ecological Reserve Mojave Project: King Clone Creosote
PARTNERSHIPSPresident’s Message – May 2025By Margaret Rhyne
The California State Park Department of Parks and Recreation has a long history of working hand in hand with many governmental agencies and nonprofits to maintain the park infrastructure necessary to accomplish its mission to “inspire, educate and preserve.” Creating and maintaining infrastructure was a major challenge from the beginning and continues to this day as fluctuating political and economic climates create maintenance obstacles. But ironically, it was during a time of great economic and political upheaval that a federal agency was created that engineered many of the iconic California State Park features that we enjoy and admire today.
In 1933 the Civilian Conservation Corps was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in response to the devastation caused by the twin disasters of environmental destruction and financial failures that we now call the Great Depression. The “CCC” soon became the most popular of the “New Deal” programs. It put millions of young men to work on a massive building program in Americas' parks and forests. The CCC gave enrollees a “… renewed sense of dignity and hope. They were not only earning a living, they were doing something important for their country, and they knew it. Roads and trails, campsites and social halls, amphitheaters and visitor centers numbered among the many features constructed by the CCC that provided the public with unprecedented access to the nation's natural and historic treasures.” (Civilian Conservation Corps in California State Parks)
Big Basin Redwood Lodge Under Construction
Left to Right: Making Adobe Bricks for Mission La Purisima Reconstruction, Big Sur Outdoor Theater Under Construction
In the 1930s, the CCC worked with California State Parks to construct buildings, trails, bridges and ramadas in many park units including Anza-Borrego, Big Sur, Mount San Jacinto, Mission La Purisima and Big Basin Red Woods. In total, twenty-nine California State Parks benefited from the work of the CCC during the Great Depression. Much of the work featured fine stonework that continues to enhance buildings, ramadas, and boundary walls in many state parks today. (One of the favorites for our family of these construction projects are the three large stone and beam ramadas in the main campground in Anza Borrego State Park.) A complete list of parks and structures can be found on the California State Park website page: Index of CCC features in California State Parks. In 1942, man power demands created by WWII resulted in the disbanding of the original CCC. However, the spirit of the CCC lived on and in the Bicentennial Year of 1976, the California Conservation Corps was created by the passage of Senate Bill 1575, signed by Governor Jerry Brown. This new “CCC” responds to natural and man-made disasters and continues the work of the original CCC by supporting infrastructure work in our state parks. In 2017, PRMDIA was honored to be a part of the reopening of Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, the home of Mitchell Caverns. The park was closed for a number of years due to long needed repairs. One of the most important challenges involved the rebuilding of the trail to the Caverns, damaged over the years by the often-fierce summer monsoons. The CCC and State Park Trails teams worked together on the trail from 2016 to 2018. They improved the trail for erosion, adding steps and walls and drainage structures. From Providence Mountains – Mitchell Caverns Park Interpreter Andy Fitzpatrick, “They also installed a new bridge that crosses the canyon just below the large and dramatic north natural entrance to Mitchell Caverns. Their work was/is outstanding. It has been 7 years now and the trail is in remarkably good shape. The stonework is of the caliber of the original CCC and visitors are impressed by it.” The California Conservation Corps also assisted during the reopening ceremony for Mitchell Caverns and PRMDIA volunteers who worked with them at the ceremony were greatly impressed by these fine young men and women. Video: Reconstruction of Trail to Mitchell Caverns More Links: The CCC and State Parks, History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, California Conservation Corps Download the PDF: Partnerships, President's Message, May 2025


WHAT’S IN A NAME President's Message March 2025 by Margaret Rhyne