There is something truly awesome – in the true sense of the word – about trees that have stood for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Thousands! Can you imagine? Before Rome, before the pyramids, before the internet.

The BBC has a piece on the oldest living things on earth, including trees 5,000 years old:

“A Great Basin bristlecone pine in California’s White Mountains named Methuselah comes in at 4,850 years old. But the oldest tree on the list, an unnamed bristlecone pine from the same location, has a core suggesting it is 5,067 years old.”

…and Pando, a clonal, quaking aspen tree larger than the Vatican City and possibly 80,000 years old.

Truly awesome.

Image: Getty Images