It started life near the end of the last Ice Age, nestled between two boulders on a rise in the Jurupa Hills of Riverside County — a shrubby oak tree estimated to be 13,000 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. Devoid of other members of its species – Quercus palmeri or Palmer’s oak — to pollinate it, it is infertile and grows clonally, with new shoots and root systems that tap rainwater collected in cracks in the rocks beneath the surface.