How long native trees and shrubs live: typical and oldest known age, A to Z

How long does a tree live? The answer comes in two parts, and the table below keeps them apart: the age a tree of its kind usually reaches, and the oldest one known. It covers the 94 trees in our catalog with a lifespan figure from a named source, and two shrubs with a dated stem. Of those trees, 58 have a typical age on record, 69 an oldest one and 33 both.

How to read the table

The typical age is how long trees of the species usually live, in the source’s own terms. It may be a typical lifespan, a life expectancy or the age at which trees begin to decline in vigor. Where a source says only that trees seldom pass an age, that age stands with “or less”.

The oldest known is the oldest tree on record, dated by counting or cross-dating its rings, or else the most a source says the species reaches. Only a tiny share of trees has ever been ring-counted or cross-dated, so the oldest dated tree is not necessarily the oldest of its kind. Where a source states an older age than the oldest tree yet dated, the row gives both, and the younger figure is marked dated, or aged where no source says how. The column after the two figures names the kind of each one, so a ring-counted tree is never read as a typical one. A blank cell means no source gives that figure, and nothing is guessed to fill it.

The two figures often lie far apart. Forest-grown trees often pass the lifespans quoted online, since those figures mostly come from old forestry texts that cared when a tree declined as timber, not how long it could live. Blue Whale Trees checked each figure against the source named in its row. A few describe yard or city trees or rest on an old or secondhand report, and that column says so.

For a tree already standing, our tree age estimator gives a range of ages from the girth of its trunk. How fast each of these trees grows while young is in the growth rate table. For a tree planted to mark a birth, a wedding or a loss, the long-lived natives and their size at twenty years are set out on their own.

The oldest trees dated by their rings

Forty-nine trees in the table have an oldest age dated by their rings, and these are the ten oldest. All of them come from the Eastern OLDLIST, a list of the oldest trees dated in eastern North America. Each is one tree whose rings were counted or cross-dated, often on a harsh site where slow growth let it persist, and the signs of such trees are in what old growth looks like.

• Bald Cypress: 2,624 years, a cross-dated tree. Its typical figure is 400 to 600.
• Northern White Cedar: 1,653 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Eastern Red Cedar: 940 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Black Gum: 679 years, a cross-dated tree.
• White Oak: 464 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Longleaf Pine: 458 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Red Spruce: 445 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Chinquapin Oak: 429 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Chestnut Oak: 427 years, a cross-dated tree.
• Pond Cypress: 417 years, a cross-dated tree.

Trees, A to Z

The table holds the 94 trees, small, medium and large. A name opens the tree’s page.

Jump to a letter: A B C D E F G H K L M N O P R S T W Y

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B

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G

H

K

L

M

N

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Y

Shrubs

Two shrubs we grow are on the Eastern OLDLIST. Each figure is the age of one stem, dated by its rings, and a shrub that sends up new stems from its base can be older than any one of them.

Common questions

How long do native trees live?

Typical lifespans in the table run from 20 to 25 years for eastern redbud up to 400 to 600 for bald cypress. The oldest dated tree, a bald cypress, is 2,624 years old.

Which native tree lives the longest?

Bald cypress lives longest, with a cross-dated tree of 2,624 years. Northern white cedar follows at 1,653 years and eastern red cedar at 940.

How long do oak trees live?

Laurel oak typically lives 50 to 70 years, while bur oak and post oak live 300 to 400. The oldest dated oak in the table, a white oak, reached 464 years.

Why do the lifespans quoted online run short?

Many come from forestry texts that recorded when a tree declined as timber, not how long it could live. A ring-counted yellow buckeye of 410 years, against a typical figure of 60 to 80, shows the gap.