Any excuse is always a good one to travel and disconnect. It doesn’t matter if you choose the summer holidays, the happy days of spring or even the cold of winter to move to any place to enjoy. If you add to that that you are one of those who have an insatiable curious spirit, then take note of the next corner to include in your list of trips to Spain: the Teide National Park (Tenerife). Yes, it is right within this emblematic environment that the oldest tree in all of Europe is found.
in the heart of Teide National Park, in Tenerife (Canary Islands)stands majestically a canary cedar (Juniperus cedrus is its scientific name). Because of his venerable appearance, he was baptized as The patriarch. Their 1,481 years have earned him to win the title of oldest tree of the European Union. This canary specimen would thus supersede Adonis, a Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) located in northern Greece and which is 1,082 years old.
A tree that has overcome up to 5 volcanic eruptions
According to the information collected by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, this thousand-year-old tree has survived many catastrophic events“such as volcanic eruptions, persistent droughts, periods of extreme cold (such as the little ice age) or even the largest natural catastrophe recorded in the Canary Islands, the San Florencio storm.”
It is located in Montaña Rajada, before the San José Mines, within the Teide National Park, and is visited every year by nearly four million people who come to this unique natural environment.
From the Council of Management of the Natural Environment and Security of the Cabildo de Tenerife they emphasize that the Teide National Park is a “great scientific laboratory in constant operation”. In statements collected by Europa Press, the first author of the work, Gabriel Sangüesa Barreda, highlighted that several of the trees found “are well over a thousand years old, and we’ve only looked at a small part of what’s out there.”
Cedars like the ‘Patriarch’ have been able to overcome up to five volcanic eruptions in the last 500 years, as well as rock falls, and have resisted all kinds of weather. In the specific case of this cedar, endemic to the Canary Islandsthe researchers found up to 329 growth rings in just over 12 centimeters of the trunk sample.
