Can you really tell a tree’s age from the rings on its stump? What you never knew

Perhaps you’ve wandered through a forest or strolled into a neighborhood park and found tree trunks — and wondered if counting the rings on a trunk is truly a way to know the tree's age. 

"Most of us learned as children that the age of a tree could be found by counting its rings," said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on its website. 

Rings of trees growing in temperate climates can indeed tell their age through their annual rings, the same source said.  

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An examination of the patterns of a tree — in addition to sharing insights into a tree's age — can also yield information on whether a tree thrived or struggled. 

"An especially wet year might result in broader rings, since the tree is able to grow more than it could have in a drier year," according to The National Park Service. 

"A blackened scar can indicate a wildfire — and other marks could point to an insect infestation."

The patterns of a tree can indicate whether a tree thrived or struggled. Here, old-growth Douglas fir trees stand along the Salmon River Trail on June 25, 2004, in Mt. Hood National Forest outside Zigzag, Oregon.  (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Fox News Digital spoke to a renowned American tree-ring expert for the solid-wood truth. 

Read on to get to the root of issue.

Do tree rings tell us the true age of a tree?

Every year, trees form new tree rings. 

Trees add a new layer of wood between the bark and the trunk each growing season, according to The Arbor Day Foundation. 

Trees can tell us so much about their own history and the world around them. 

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Some of the oldest trees in the world are thousands of years old, according to the same foundation. "They’ve lived through major environment changes, climate shifts and numerous historical events," said the same source.

But what do the tree rings actually indicate? 

Trees are sensitive to conditions such as temperature, moisture and sunlight, so their growth reacts to these factors. (iStock)

"The pattern of large and small rings that commonly occur in a sequence of tree rings provides the basis for tree-ring dating," said Steven W. Leavitt, PhD, associate director and professor, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, Tucson. 

He is also chief editor of the journal Tree-Ring Research and associate editor of the journal Radiocarbon. 

If someone is walking through a park or forest and sees a fresh-cut stump, the outer ring would be assigned to the year it was cut — and by recognizing each of the rings, one could count the rings inward, Leavitt told Fox News Digital. 

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Since trees are sensitive to conditions such as temperature, moisture and sunlight, their growth reacts to these factors, The Arbor Day Foundation noted.

Wider tree rings may indicate a warm, wet year — while fine tree rings could represent a cold and dry season, the same source recounted.

‘Size and growth of tree rings’

Many factors affect the way the tree grows, altering the shape, thickness, color and uniformity of the rings. So tree rings will read differently, Leavitt told Fox News Digital.

"Factors like tree species and geographic location can impact the size and growth of tree rings," he said.  

A closeup of a cypress tree branch. "Tree rings are used in ecological studies to assess the environment to which the trees were exposed — including weather, fire and insect pests," said one expert.  (iStock)

"Long-lived species like oaks will have narrower tree rings, while species like willows and aspen will have wider rings because of their short life cycle."

Tree ring data has been used to reconstruct drought or temperature in North America and Europe over the past 2,000 years, according to the NOAA.

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The study of tree rings is a highly multidisciplinary field and Leavitt said that tree rings provide an abundance of history. 

"Tree rings can be used to date wood in historical and archaeological structures and tree rings can be used to reconstruct various weather parameters including precipitation, snowfall, soil moisture, temperature, streamflow and more," said Leavitt. 

The Sentinel tree, center, a giant sequoia tree, stands at 2,200 years old and 257 feet high, on August 22, 2022, in Sequoia National Park, California.  (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

"And tree rings are used in ecological studies to assess the environment to which the trees were exposed — including weather, fire and insect pests."

The next time you’re passing a tree stump, take some time to think about what you’re seeing. 

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There’s a lot of history there about the tree’s age, its life story and its impact on the surrounding ecosystem. 

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