José Luis Martín Esquivel, biologist of the Teide National ParkIn September, he received a call from his fellow researcher José Miguel Olano. “He told me to sit down so I wouldn’t fall from the impression”Esquivel recalls. That remote and stiff cedar that they had found in the hollow of a volcanic wall in the National Park had an incredible age. The investigation determined that is at least 1,481 years old. That is, he was born in 541. There were still 955 years left for the Castilians to conquer Tenerife and the Guanches already populated the Island. “It is likely that it is older, since it is not certain that we have reached the nucleus, given the geometry of the trunk,” Esquivel points out.
This copy of Juniperus cedrusdubbed by researchers as Bárbol, is the oldest tree in Europe. It is located in the southern area of the Teide National Park. On November 23, 2021, it was published in the scientific journal Ecology of the Ecological Society of America the study showing that treebeard It is the oldest specimen of the old continent. The analysis was carried out by a team of biologists from the Teide National Park, together with a group of researchers from the University Institute of Sustainable Forest Management of the University of Valladolid and the Rey Juan Carlos I University.
The investigation, led by José Miguel Olano, determined that treebeard unseats the pine popularly nicknamed Adonis 1,081 years old, found in Greece. The oldest trees, for the most part, are not the most voluminous specimens. For this reason, José Luis Esquivel and his team began to investigate the antiquity of the cedars of smaller dimensions. The trigger for this study was another Teide cedar known as The patriarch. To this juniper cedar of more than 1,000 years, a first test was carried out. A 12.5-centimeter sample was taken and then another from the central part of the trunk to date it using the Carbon 14 technique. The patriarch he was 1,118 years old.
The name of this specimen of at least 1,481 years, ‘Bárbol’, comes from ‘The Lord of the Rings’
After the discovery, Esquivel and the Park’s team of experts thought that there could be more specimens of extraordinary antiquity on the top of Tenerife. For this reason, they contacted Javier Martín Carvajal, co-author of the research and climber. They asked him if he had seen in his climbs cedars of the characteristics of El Patriarca. Martín Carvajal scored thirty. It was in that search that he appeared treebeard.
The name chosen by Esquivel himself and the rest of the scientific team comes from a tree-shaped character The Lord of the rings. This figure is the guardian of Fangorn, one of the oldest forests in the fictional universe of the saga. For this reason they considered that it was the most appropriate name for the specimen. Followed the same steps as with The patriarch and they discovered that he was the grandfather of the grandparents among these ancient cedars. treebeardfrom his privileged vantage point, perched on a crevasse, has experienced the last six volcanic eruptions of Teide: those of the years 1492, 1704, 1706, 1798 and 1909.
It is the typical curved trunk cedar. In addition, as José Luis Esquivel, doctor in Biology and official of the Government of the Canary Islands with more than 30 years of experience, affirms, “at some point in his long life, a stone fell on him and almost broke him.” Hence, its structure is “more arched than normal.” Its size does not exceed 7 meters. It is possible that some internal layers have been decomposed by the passage of so many years. This unique cedar, like El Patriarca, is female. It has lived in extreme conditions and finding them is “very complicated”, says the Teide National Park biologist, “because they are found in cliff areas.”
After using Carbon 14, the researchers analyzed the DNA to determine if there were other cedars like these in such ancient times. Yes, there were in Las Cañadas. With the arrival of the first humans on the island – the Berbers began to arrive in Tenerife around the 5th century BC – the populations of these juniper cedar they began to disappear. The Guanches used the wood of the cedars for different daily uses. The worst moment occurred after the conquest of Tenerife, in 1496. The grazing of goats also had an influence.
Before the arrival of humans there were numerous cedars like this on the top of Tenerife
All these data began to be known after the declaration of the top of the Island as a National Park in 1954. From the first exhaustive investigations, biologists were struck by the appearance of young cedars. After studying them, they determined that these specimens, which were at the highest altitude, gave off seeds that were dispersed throughout space. These specimens have become protected and are slowly recovering.
After the discovery of the age of treebeard, the biologists of the natural area have developed a strategy: through assisted migration in the Cañadas area, they want to form a belt of cedars, similar to the one that existed before the arrival of humans. They plan to start with the repopulation at the end of this year. “Cedars are thermophilic; that is to say, they can withstand a climate with extreme conditions, with which they would adapt very well to the environment”, concludes José Luis Esquivel, one of the privileged few who has seen treebeard in his hidden lair on Teide.
