EARTH’S OLDEST TREE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 156, 15 April 1936, Page 7

EARTH’S OLDEST TREE.

OVER 12,000 YEARS' OLD. Queensland claims to have the oldest living thing on earth. It is a macrozamia, a tree about 20 feet in* height and estimated to bo more than 12,000 year s old. In the Tamborine Mountain reserve there is a whole grove of macrozamia, the youngest of them being 3ft in height and 3000 years old. When Prolessor Chamberlain, of Chicago University, was appointed to collect data concerning macrozamias in various parts of the world, lie travelled all over the globe, and the largest specimen ho had seen prior to coming to Queensland was between six and seven feet in height and was found in South Africa. He was amazed, therefore, when he found in the Tamaborine Mountain re* serve a whole grove of macrozamia which measured over 20 feet in height, and whose ages lie estimated to be be* tween 12,000 and 15,000 years. The largest macrozamia which Professtv Chamberlain had ever seen, and weighing 851 b., as against the South African record of 351 b., contained 151 seeds, and these went to America. O'ne seed was planted in each of America’s 151 national parks. Now each of the seeds lias germinated, so that a descendant of Queensland’s macrozamia is now growing in each of the national parks of America.