California, Dec 28 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Michael May led a team of researchers on top of a small hill in suburban southern California and they found a tree older than dirt. At first glance it appeared to be a grove of trees, but closer inspection revealed that it is in fact one plant. It was named Palmer’s oak (Quercus palmeri), which the researchers are estimating to be over 13,000 years old, making it one of the oldest plants on Earth.

The scientists were puzzled when they found this so-called grove of trees, because none of them produced fertile acorns, so the trees couldn’t reproduce at all. Then the speculation started that this was just one single tree. And later scientific and genetic analysis confirmed the theory totally. Each of the 70 stems are genetically identical; they are the same plant, currently growing in an oval 25 yards long and 8 yards wide.

“Getting a handle on how old these organisms are is hard; most estimates are based on growth rates,” which can have large errors, team member Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra also of the University of California, Davis said.

“If they’re right about how the oak regenerates, then their age estimate seems valid and true,” Jennifer DeWoody of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom said. “This could be a very old tree.”

So it is being said that the tree started its life in the ice age, hence it is older than dirt itself.