View full size image. Until 2013, the oldest individual tree in the world was Methuselah, a 4,845-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in the White Mountains of California.nd on the other side of the world, in an Andes Mountains grove in Chile, we have a 3,642-year-old Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides). The ancient specimen, which is sometimes called the Alerce (alerce is a common Spanish name for F. cupressoides), is the third-oldest tree to have its exact age calculated.