Daily Independent Staff Writer
You find them everywhere. They
The creosote or "greasewood" bush.
Vasek was in Ridgecrest Monday for a Maturango Museum banquet.
Clones grow in circular or elliptical shapes, better known as creosote rings. Genetically, all of the bushes in the ring are alike.
The oldest found thus far is "King Clone." estimated at 11,700 years.
The search for old creosotes, "is like looking for a needle in a haystack," said Vasek.
Usually, none of the original wood is left-730 years is about as long as they last before they rot away," he added. If the wood samples are less than 330 years old, data from radiocarbon dating can be unreliable, he added.
So he has poked around the ground a lot.
"It's a lot of shovel work."
Estimating the age of a particular clone involves counting the rings of a living bush, then estimating growth rate of the wood from the center. Radiocarbon dating is used on the older pieces.
In the beginning of the cloning process, seedlings put out lateral
Clones do occasionally reverse direction and move inward, according to Vasek. Commonly, rings are three to six meters across.
"Big ones are uncommon," he added. King Clone, in Johnson Valley, is 22 meters across.
"There are bigger rings than King Clone," Vasek commented, "they probably grew faster because of the availability of water." One such ring is located south of Kramer Junction, he added.
Rings seem to be found more commonly in stable habitats, generally level, with little or no erosion and low rainfall levels, Vasek added. The typical ring has a mound of sand in it, possibly to assist in the clone's survival by storing water. The ring ellipse orients parallel to the wind and perpendicular to the drainage.
Many seem to be found in Johnson Valley, where Vasek conducted most of his studies in the mid '70s.
Not only are the individual clones old in and of themselves, but the
Vasek estimated that the creosote "moved in" when glaciers retreated about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
"They probably started in the lower valleys, such as Yuma. Since then, the creosote has spread east to Utah,' north to Owens Valley south to Mexico. Other variations are found in south America.
"They - are champions of survival."
In areas where several years of drought cause massive creosote dieoff, seeds remain to start new plants with the next rain. It may be possible that areas east of Barstow are examples of such.
Vasek and his work is entered in the Guiness Book of World records, and findings have been published internationally.
As professor of Botany, Vasek specializes in taxonomy, evolution and ecology. He is currently working studying white fir and the pollen functions of Clarkia wildflowers in the San Joaquin Valley.