Tree-Old Tjikko Black TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 16-Apr-24 this trackable had survived for 4.6 years and had been moved by 9 cachers, for an average drop every 185 days, or 2.0 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

A wooden ring to a tree ring to a tree seems like a logical sequence.  Whatever the case, this is one of a series of wooden rings named for famous or unusual trees. 

Old Tjikko is a 9,550-year-old Norway Spruce tree, located on Fulufjället Mountain of Sweden. It is the world's oldest known living individual clonal tree.  The age of the tree was determined by carbon dating of the root system under the tree, not by dendrochronology, or counting tree rings.  The trunk itself is estimated to be only a few hundred years old, but the tree as a whole may have survived for much longer due to a process known as layering (when a branch comes in contact with the ground, it sprouts a new root), or vegetative cloning (when the trunk dies but the root system is still alive, it may sprout a new trunk).

The tree stands only 16 ft tall at present.  For thousands of years, the tree appeared in a stunted shrub formation because of the harsh environment where it lives. During the warming of the last century, the tree has sprouted into a normal tree formation.  The man who discovered the tree, Leif Kullman, attributed this growth spurt to global warming, and given the tree its nickname "Old Tjikko" after his late dog.