Roger Kennedy brought this story to my attention about a spruce that was nearly 10,000 years old on the mountainous border between Sweden and Norway. As it turns out the trees themselves only last several centuries, but their root systems live on. It is postulated that the root system of the one pictured above basically started at the end of the last ice age, and has lived on in the harsh and isolated landscape ever since. As the Bristlecone adage goes “adversity breeds longevity”.