It is generally accepted that the pines of Adonis and Italus are the oldest trees in Europe. Adonis is one thousand and seventy five years old and Italus is one thousand two hundred years old. They are nothing compared to Methesula, the oldest tree in the world at over four thousand years old, whose location remains a closely guarded secret to this day. Or are they the oldest? There is one tree, an old gymnosperm evergreen, that is reckoned to be over nine and half thousand years old. This is Old Tjikko.
Whatever the age trees need some tender loving care and Dorset Tree Surgeon https://kieranboylandtreeservices.com/ are certainly up for the job.
Why is Old Tjikko not the oldest tree in Europe let alone the world. The answer is not as simple as you would expect. Methesula, Adonis and Italus are all trees that come from a single seed and have grown, continuously and without pausel over their lifetime. Old Tjikko is a clonal tree. In other words it has cloned itself and grew again and again from its root system, but it is not the same tree as what originally grew. If we use the biblical and classical references it would be better to call it Lazarus or better still Doctor Who.
Britain’s ancient churchyard yews
Britain has its own contenders for great age: two ancient yews, the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire and the Llangernyw Yew in Wales. Both grow in churchyards. Yews are gymnosperms, a far older group of plants than flowering trees such as oak, apple and ash.
The Fortingall Yew is thought to be somewhere between two and three thousand years old, and the Llangernyw Yew is reckoned to be older still. These are only estimates, because the heartwood of both trees has long gone, and that is what is needed to count the rings. A tree like Italus, which still has its heartwood, can be dated far more reliably, which is why such trees, rather than the yews, are usually named as the oldest.
The yews carry their own legends. Llangernyw’s is said to call out, every Halloween, the names of the parishioners who will die in the coming year.