King Clone

King Clone is thought to be the oldest creosote bush ring in the Mojave Desert.

The ring is estimated to be 11,700 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth.

[1][2][3] The King Clone ring is on restricted-access land in the central Mojave Desert, near the towns of Lucerne Valley and Landers.

[3] King Clone was identified and the age estimated by Frank Vasek, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

After Vasek hypothesized that the creosote ring was, in fact, one organism, Leonel da Silveira Lobo O'Reilly Sternberg (then a graduate student working in Vasek's lab), documented that plants within a ring had more similar characteristics than those from other plant clusters.