Did you know that the oldest single tree still living on earth is thought to be around 5,000 years old, and the oldest tree colony, named Pando, up to 16,000 years old?

Trees that are still alive today have witnessed some of human history's highest peaks and lowest ebbs. Scroll on to take a virtual tour and meet some trees with remarkable histories...

It's said that Julius Caesar tethered his horse to this ancient yew tree and slept beneath its boughs when travelling through this region of Belgium. Historians may doubt this local legend, but whatever they say, it's a remarkable sight set against the medieval city gate.

Found in the grounds of King's Inns, Dublin, this London Plane tree has spent much of the past century slowly growing around and 'eating' a cast iron bench. For decades it has entertained tourists, and it's now designated a historic monument.

This tree started life on the outskirts of Los Angeles some time in the 1800s. In 1889, it was moved to the railway station, where it became a symbol of the west coast, akin to the Statue of Liberty. By 1914 it was moved to Agricultural Park and recognised as the oldest tree.

At Anraku-ji Temple in Hiroshima is a 300 year old Ginkgo tree that actually grows through the temple gate. However, it's even more remarkable as a hibakujumoku, a survivor tree of the August 6 1945 atomic bomb.

In an instant, the atomic blast killed 80,000 people and wiped out 12 square km of the city. 1,700m from the hypocenter, this willow was just outside the circle of near-certain death. The trunk was burned and the canopy destroyed. But the tree grew again.

For 1400 years, this lonely pistachio tree has greeted travellers taking the old trade route between Mecca and Damascus. It is said that as a child, the prophet Muhammad sat under this tree, where the monk Bahira foretold his future. Today, the tree is a major tourist site.

This tree is an anomaly. According to an 1890 article in the Athens Weekly Banner, this tree was given ownership of itself and all land within 8 feet, by its former owner, William H. Jackson, some 60 years earlier. Legal or not, this had been adhered to by the townsfolk.

In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center, this callery pear tree was discovered amongst the rubble and remains. It was badly scorched and only a single branch remained living, but rescuers immediately saw the significance of this survivor tree.

The tree was revived by workers at the Arthur Ross Nursery, and in December 2010, the tree was moved to the memorial site at Ground Zero.

Legends holds that the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates taught beneath the boughs of this plane tree, now protected by scaffolding. Sadly, this tree is no more than 500 years old, but it may be a direct descendent of the original, said to have stood here for 2400 years.

The shelves are filled with perfectly aligned works, each with their own handwritten label, camouflaged like a library for all who see it.

Notice the texture of the spines—they are made of bark! The wood in this xylothèque is presented in the form of little boards cut vertically from tree trunks, from the bark to the heartwood, measuring about 8 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 2 inches thick (20 cm x 15 cm x 5 cm).

Xylothèques (collections of samples of various types of wood) are of interest for both aesthetic and scientific reasons. If the samples have their date and location recorded, they can be useful for tree-ring dating. We can also study the physical properties of the wood, such as its density and resistance.

Oaks, which belong to the Quercus genus, are the most common trees in European forests. Here are two green oaks, a pedunculate oak, a sessile oak, and a chestnut-leaved oak.

Eucalyptus trees are pyrophytes. Strangely, some plants need fire and even create favorable conditions for it themselves. That is the case with this tree, whose emissions of oils, carpet of leaves, and stance all favor the onset and propagation of fire.

Specimens of this tree are capable of reaching the loftiest heights. In California, where it is from, they can exceed 330 feet (100 m), the record being held by a tree 380 feet (116 m) tall.

This species is originally from North America. The properties of its wood made it highly prized for the production of bows by indigenous people, particularly the Osage Nation.

This native North American tree was introduced to France by Jean Robin, who was Henri IV's gardener. In fact, the oldest planted tree in Paris is a locust, planted in 1602 by that same gardener in the city's botanical garden.

Its remarkable longevity, with several 1,000-year-old specimens having been reported, its tortuous trunk, its hard wood, its silvery leaves, and its cultivation in the Mediterranean region for about 6,000 years all make this tree a symbol of the Mediterranean

Today, the apple tree is probably the most cultivated species. We owe its cultivation to the painstaking selection process carried out by brown bears! Among the wide range of sizes, shapes, and flavors, bears chose the best of them to eat, thereby participating in their reproduction and distribution.

The Muséum de Nîmes couldn't fail to have a sample of the European nettle tree—they line the city's avenues. This tree came to symbolize the region, having been used to make whips, pitchforks, splints, and stringed musical instruments.

It all began with an apple - ever since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden, artists have seen this subject as an exciting opportunity to depict man and woman au naturel.

Few captured that seminal moment better than Lucas Cranach the Elder in this 1531 panel painting, The Fall. Standing under the weighty, suggestive boughs of the tree of knowledge, Eve offers the forbidden fruit to the enticed Adam.

Around the same time, Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted a moment of respite during the late-summer harvest. Away from the wheat fields, under the shade of a pear tree, a group of peasants take a break from scything and stacking to eat lunch.

In all directions, the landscape is filled with trees, but our eyes are drawn to the woods closest. And if you take a closer look, you'll see people picking fruit.

Meindert Hobbema was an exemplary painter who specialised in woodlands. His quiet country scenes often feature a towering tree, cottages shaded by coppices, cool, still millponds, and weary travellers taking a moment to rest.

Other artists often used trees as framing devices, but Hobbema seems to be genuinely interested in them. His landscapes are idealised, but the vegetation is as varied as it is in nature.

Hasegawa Tōhaku's forest scene uses more negative space than ink. Only a few pine trees poke out of the morning mist, many more appear almost as ghosts in the faintest grey. It goes to show that naturalism is not always needed in art.

Landscape scenes such as this drew on a long history of heavily stylised, semi-abstract painting, dating back to the Chinese painter-monk Muqi of the Southern Song dynasty (c. 1127-1279).

Later Japanese artists, such as Katsushika Hokusai, used an even more stylised aesthetic, but also stayed in touch with the natural world. This woodcut print of a large pine tree at Mishima Pass places its subject front and centre, and suggests that it even surpasses Mount Fuji.

By using a woodcut, Hokusai was able to create fine details that really capture the rough bark of this ancient tree.

The subjects and composition of Japanese prints inspired later European artists such as Vincent van Gogh. The result was one of the most famous trees in art; the towering Cypress in Starry Night, whose trembling branches reach up into the swirling heavens above.

These evergreens are common across much of continental Europe, where they're associated with churches, graveyards, and death. In this picture, that association is cemented; the form of the cypress echoes of the spire of the distant church.

Claude Monet was another artist inspired by the elegant style and simplicity of Eastern art. This pale pink and sky blue painting of the rising sun at Lavacourt shows the play of light over the barren winter landscape and its leafless plant life.

Look closely, and see how Monet suggests the form of distant roofs and trees with just a few smears of paint.

Henri Rousseau told stories of his time in the rainforests. In truth, he had never left France. His vibrant jungle scenes were dreamt up in the tropical botanical gardens of Paris. Many of his exotic trees are simply oversized houseplants.

But what an active imagination he had! Even if his technique seemed childlike and his settings outlandish, he created visions of leafy rainforests and tangled jungles that last to this day.

In the early years of the 20th Century, modernists would take up the mantle of art, and painters such as Rousseau would be championed. In 1911, the Canadian Emily Carr was studying in France when she painted this vivid landscape composed almost entirely of complementary colours.

This small painting shows the direction that many post-Impressionist, Fauvist, and Cubist artists were taking: flat patches of bold colours like nothing in nature, applied freely to describe form.

Georgia O'Keeffe is said to be the artist who brought modernism to the United States. In the 1920s, she became known for her ambiguous studies of form and colour in flowers. This work resembles those, but takes the turning leaves of trees in autumn as its subject.

In the 1930s, O'Keeffe secluded herself from the city to live a simpler life focussed on work, in the deserts of New Mexico. Gerald's Tree I draws all attention to the spikey, grey-brown trunk of a dead cedar tree that stood in the red hills of O'Keeffe's home, Ghost Ranch.