Larry, Great question. I wish I knew a good answer. There seems to be a wide variety of trees and plants that can form clonal colonies.
a.. There are the Aspen clonal colonies - the Pando colony covers over 100 acres. This aspen clone in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah is composed of 47,000 stems of genetically identical aspen trees (Populus tremuloides), with a total weight of 6 million kilograms (6,500 tons). Some estimates of the age of the colony are as high as 80,000 years b.. Professor Leif Kullman of Umea University in Sweden reports a Norway spruce (Picea abies) high in the mountains separating Norway and Sweden that is 8,000 years old. c.. Then, Dr. Frank Vasek of the University of California at Riverside investigated the strange, circular growth patterns of a flowering shrub called creosote bush (Larrea tridentata) in the Mojave Desert. Dr. Vasek proved that each giant ring of shrubs came from its own ancestral shrub that once grew from the center of the ring. The interesting circular growth pattern can be explained by examining sections of creosote bush stumps (stem crowns) at the base of the shrubs. One of the oldest shrub rings is 50 feet (15 m) in diameter. It has been estimated that it started from a seed 11,700 years ago. d.. There is this scrub oak species (Quercus palmeri) estimated at 13,000 years mention in the article growing in California. e.. Another massive and very ancient plant clone in North America is the huckleberry (Gaylussacia brachycera), a member of the heath family (Ericaceae). Estimates of the age of the box huckleberry approach 50,000 years. f.. According to the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (1997), a rare and endangered shrub of the protea family (Proteaceae) called King's Holly (Lomatia tasmanica) may be the oldest plant clone in the world. The plants appear to be sterile triploids incapable of producing viable seeds. The clonal thickets reproduce vegetatively by root suckering and have been estimated to be at least 43,000 years old. g.. There are clonal colonies of sumac, rhododendron, and hawthorns. Most of the above are mention in the Botanical record Breakers site: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601.htm The ages estimates may be rather optimistic, but they are clonal colonies. There seems to be quite a wide variety of woody species that can form clonal colonies.. Maybe it is a reproductive option that is available in a broad range of plant species... Ed Frank http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ http://primalforests.ning.com/ http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=709156957 ----- Original Message ----- From: Larry To: ENTSTrees Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2010 9:48 AM Subject: [ENTS] Re: In California, a Scrub Oak Is an Old Pro at Cloning En, Way cool stuff! I wonder how many other species can do this? Thanks for posting it. Larry
