California redwood: This beautiful, soaring 249 foot tree is a mere 777 years old - half what experts believed

Experts are cataloguing old growth trees across the state

Emily Burns, Director of Science with Save the Redwoods League, sits near Redwoods at the Muir Woods National Monument (AP)

They had estimated soaring redwood tree located in California’s Muir Woods, would be at least 1,500 years old.

It turned out to be half that.

The study by Humboldt State University is the first determination of the age of trees in the woods that sit north of San Francisco, the Associated Press reported..

The findings mean the 249-foot-tall coast redwood named Tree 76 was born seven centuries later than initially believed. It also means the oldest and biggest tree found in Muir Woods is just a baby compared with the huge old-growth trees farther north.

San Francisco's Save the Redwoods League is documenting the age, size and tree-ring history of California's old-growth redwood groves as part a statewide project. The plan is to identify tree-ring patterns and figure out how trees react to climate change.

Reports said that tree rings are larger during wet years and smaller during dry years.

Tree-ring science was used to document a coast redwood near Crescent City that is 2,520 years old. The oldest giant sequoia, a redwood species that grows in the Sierra Nevada, is 3,240 years old.