In California's Jurupa Mountains, there is a very unusual group of tree - a Palmer's oak. Unlike the mighty trees that usually bear the oak name, this one looks like little more than a collection of small bushes. But appearances can be deceiving. This apparently disparate group of plants are all clones of a single individual, and a very old one at that. By repeatedly cloning itself, the Palmer's oak has lived past the separation of Britain from continental Europe, the demise of the mammoths and saber-toothed cats, and the birth of human agriculture. It is among the oldest plants in existence, first sprouting from an acorn around 13,000 years ago. According to the creationist view of history, this tree was around 7,000 years old when the universe was created.
Today, the Jurupa individual grows in a narrow gulch between two large granite boulders, and it's the only one of ...
