The Ancient Ones

Ginnan the ginkgo — 270 million years old, a living fossil — leads the oldest parliament on Earth: Methus the 4,800-year-old bristlecone, Abuelo the 3,600-year-old alerce, Tjikko the spruce with 9,500-year-old roots, and Dawn the dawn redwood, believed extinct for millions of years until she walked out of a Chinese valley in the 1940s. Here, who was here longest decides what the forgetting means — and the forgetting of the Missing Ring is the longest decision any of them has ever made.

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