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We’ve covered some of the oldest things on earth, including the oldest known tree, the oldest car, and even the oldest restaurant, which has been in operation for over 1200 years.
Would you guess a lowly box huckleberry bush in rural Pennsylvania would make the list?
Located in the rural landscapes of Pennsylvania, a particular colony of Box Huckleberry has an incredible age, estimated to be up to 13,000 years old.
Its genetic makeup suggests that it has survived through dramatic climatic shifts, including the chilling periods of the Ice Age, and has witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations.
One colony known as Losh Run lives alongside the Juniata River near Route 322/22. Reaching only about a foot in height, the plant nonetheless is extremely hardy, and sprouts new offshoots as it creeps along the forest floor.
While measuring tree age can be done with rings, the same can’t be said of a shrub like the box huckleberry. Instead, scientists use the estimated growth rate of 6 inches per year, measuring the length of the entire colony.
Tragically, most of this colony was destroyed in the 1970s with the expansion of roads, though a few separate groupings of the shrub exists on private property.
Photo by John Styers
The remaining shrubs are marked as part of the Tuscarora State Forest, and stand as a testament to nature’s tenacity, strength, and pure age.
Box Huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera), 1919. Artist Mary Vaux Walcott. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
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