While it was clear Prometheus was
old (because it was in a grove previously
identified as having
old trees and was one of the more well - developed ones), there was no inkling that this was a
tree «on its last leg.»
A model of clone growth with time was constructed and based on the relation between time - since - fire dates of
tree - ring dated fires (recent) and 14C - dated fires (
old) and the perimeter of the two largest clones in each site where genetic markers were used to
identify genuine clones (figure 3).