Oldest living Tree in Europe

This pine tree is oldest living inhabitant in Europe, in the highlands of northern Greece.

The millenium old pine was discovered by scientists from Stockholm University (Sweden), the University of Mainz (Germany) and the University of Arizona (USA).

Above the pine in the Pindos mountains, in northern Greece. Credit Dr Oliver Konter, Mainz

Is a Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1075 years old.

This makes it currently the oldest known living tree in Europe.

Swedish dendrochronologist, Paul J. Krusic, leader of the expedition that found the tree, said:

“It is quite remarkable that this large, complex and impressive organism has survived so long in such an inhospitable environment, in a land that has been civilized for over 3000 years.

Many years ago I read a thesis about this very interesting forest in Greece. In our research, we try to build long chronologies to construct climate histories, so finding living trees of old age is one of our motivations. To age the tree, we needed to take a core of wood, from the outside to the center. The core is one meter and has 1075 annual rings.”