Scientists have found the oldest tree in Europe, which is 1075 years old

Adonis, Bosnian pine over 1075 years old. Photo: Dr Oliver Konter, Mainz

Bosnian pine ( Pinus heldreichii ) in the Pind Mountains in northern Greece is officially recognized as the oldest single growing tree in Europe. A group of scientists from the University of Stockholm (Sweden), the University of Mainz (Germany) and the University of Arizona (USA) determined by dendrochronological method that the age of pine is at least 1075 years .

Dendrochronological dating implies determining the age of a tree by calculating annual rings. There are several methods for how to do this without cutting the trunk: for example, by the number of verticils, by the thickness of the trunk, which is divided by the maximum thickness of growth rings, or by means of a drill Pressler, which takes a sample of wood from its bark to the core. In this case, the scientists used the drill and drilled the barrel to a depth of 1 meter. In this sample, dendrochronists counted 1075 annual rings.

“It's amazing that such a large and impressive body survived for so long in such a harsh environment, on earth that has been developed by man for over 3000 years,” says Swedish dendrohronist Paul Krusic, the leader of a scientific expedition that discovered the tree. . During an expedition to the Pind Mountains, they found more than a dozen individual trees about 1000 years old. The expedition was sent by the Environmental Observatory to Navarino in cooperation with Stockholm University, the Academy of Athens and TEMES SA with the aim of studying the history of the European climate and its impact on the lives of people in the Mediterranean region.
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Scientists hope that in this forest there will be stumps from fallen trees of the same age. Valuable information on climate change in Europe over the past thousand years will be available from their annual rings.

The oldest discovered specimen got its own name - Adonis, in honor of the young Greek god of spring, who was famous for her unearthly beauty (Aphrodite, the goddess of love, fell in love with him) and personified the annual revival of nature.

“It is impressive that, in the context of Western civilization, the whole human history has passed alongside this tree; all empires, Byzantine, Ottoman, all the people who lived in this region. So many events could lead to his death. Fortunately, the forest has remained virtually untouched for over a thousand years, ”says Krusich.

Assuming a minimum estimate of 1075 years of age, the Adonis tree sprouted in 941. This year, the old Russian prince of Kiev Igor Rurikovich went to Byzantium, and the Russian army passed the Black Sea coast from the Bosphorus to Paphlagonia. In the same year, the fleet of Igor from more than a thousand ships was defeated by the Greek fleet of the parakimomenon of Patricia Theophan and partially destroyed by Greek fire. After the raids on the Byzantine lands and a series of defeats in September 941, Prince Igor returned home. That is, in 941, the Russian troops were not far from the place in Greece where the Adonis tree sprouted.

Around the same years (936-950), Germany fought against the Czech Republic, and Hungary began to terrorize its neighboring countries, captured all of Thrace and reached Constantinople, and the champions of long-distance hikes, the Scandinavian Vikings, reached the Black Sea for the first time and probably reached North America.

When Adonis was one hundred years old, gunpowder was invented in China, a king named Macbeth was crowned in Scotland, and the construction of St. Sophia Cathedral was completed in Kiev, and the Slavic Zeta state proclaimed independence.

When the Bosnian pine grew to an impressive 250 years, Oxford University was founded, the city of Bern was founded in the territory of the future Switzerland, the English King Richard sold Cyprus to the Templars, and the Novgorodians, together with the Karelians, made a sea voyage to Finland and took the city of Abo (now Turku).

At the age of 500, Adonis witnessed how the Ottoman Empire conquered his native Greece, and many educated Greeks migrated to the west, contributing to the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe (by the way, the Greek settlers were called Pindos by the name of the Pindi Mountains; this word is used before so far, but in a mystical way has received a different meaning). In 1441, Johann Gutenberg tested an experienced copy of a printing press and tried to cast the first letters.

1691: Adonis is already 750 years old. This year, the entire circulation of Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Foundations of Physics book was sold out (about 300 copies were sold out incredibly quickly: in four years), and Johann Bernoulli found the catenary equation.

Finally, Adonis celebrated his thousand-year anniversary in a gloomy time for Europe, when Nazi Germany, Italy and Bulgaria occupied Greece during Operation Marita .

And then came the year 2016. The tree continues to live in the same place where it was born in the heyday of the Byzantine Empire. Over the thousand-year history of Adonis, many historical events have occurred around, and how many interesting things will happen in future centuries!

Adonis is the oldest tree in Europe, but not in the world. The oldest of the separately growing trees in the world is considered to be a spinous intermountain pine tree, discovered in 2012 on the territory of the Inio National Forest (“Forest of Ancient Perennial Pines”) in eastern California. The date of the germination of this tree is 3050 BC.


Pando Grove in the Fishlake National Forest. Photo: Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture

And among the clonal trees, the oldest in the world is the Pando poplar colony in the state of Utah, whose root system was formed, according to estimates by various scientists , from 80,000 to 1,000,000 years ago.


Old Tikko. Photo: Karl Brodowsky

The oldest single clonal tree in the world is the Old Tikko spruce in Sweden, aged 9,550 years. Its germination date is 7534 BC. Unfortunately, the story did not preserve information about what was happening in Europe at that time.