The world's oldest beech trees

Beeches (genus Fagus) the oldest in the world are found mainly in Europe e Asia, but they are not single trees as in the case of some ancient conifers, but rather ancient woods o very old specimens that have resisted for centuries.

In Europe, there are a number of old-growth beech forests, protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites for their ecological and historical value: in Slovakia, Germany, Albania, and Ukraine. But it is Italy, within the perimeter of the Old Continent, that has a unique heritage of ancient beech forests.

In the ancient beech forest of Soriano nel Cimino, in Lazio, one of the oldest and best preserved in Italy, some specimens are more than 400 years old, and going down towards the southern regions the Umbrian forest, which is located in Puglia, inside the Gargano National Park, In the province of FoggiaThe term “umbra” has no reference to the region of Umbria, but it comes from Latin shadow, meaning “shadow”, and evokes the dense vegetation, located in a position between the mountains and the sea, which characterizes this ancient forest, which, like the beech forest of Monte Cimino, has entered the group of places protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

oldest beech trees in the world — Centuries-old beech trees. On the left is Michele, a 622-year-old beech tree. Source: Twitter profile of the Ecology magazine)

But the most recent discovery in the catalogue of ancient beech forests comes from Basilicata, and precisely from Massif of the Pollino, a natural and wooded oasis in the Southern Apennines. Here, the beech trees, considered the oldest in Italy and among the oldest in the world, were discovered by a team of experts led by Professor Gianluca Piovesan, Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Tuscia. The discovery was published in the journal Ecology, and was funded by the Ministry of the Environment with the contribution of the MIUR for a research project on Italian mountains.

The scientific method used by Piovesan's team is the dendrochronology, Namely the measurement of trunk rings, studied by removing small sections. Each represents approximately one year of the tree's life. This method allows us to precisely date the tree's lifespan, but by observing the thickness of the trunk sections, we can understand the climatic conditions in which the tree grew.

If, for example, the climate during the period of formation of a ring presents favorable temperatures and abundant rainfall, the ring will be thicker. Conversely, if the conditions are unfavorable, the rings will be thinner. The history of the individual growth of the beeches It is very variable: a tree can take from one to seven centuries to reach an impressive size, greater than 60 centimetres in diameter, and the characteristics of the Pollino site have meant that the beech trees grow slowly and regularly, so as to ensure a certain longevity.

On Pollino it was possible to observe the negative relationship between the average growth of the trunk and the age of the tree: to simplify, if a tree grows slowly and gradually, with a lower rate and lower growth, it is usually shorter and older, and we find age of trunks greater than 600 yearsThe difficult climatic conditions of Pollino and more generally of the Mediterranean mountain environments have allowed a greater longevity of the beech trees. The oldest and slowest growing beech trees are characterised by broken crowns and stunted heights due to the difficult environmental conditions. Like Michele, Beech tree di , named in memory of an illustrious Italian botanist of the nineteenth century, Michael Tenore.

Furthermore, old trees constitute real natural archives for rebuild la history of the environment, and in the beech forest of the Pollino Park, but in the large beech forests in general, the climatic obstacles create habitats for the saproxylic insects, that is, to put it simply, those that live in dead wood and feed on it. Among these, the species Osmoderma eremita, a European beetle restricted to hollow tree clearing areas and currently endangered.

(Photo credits featured image: Gianluca Piovesan)

Where are the oldest beech trees in the world? In Italy.

Read also:

Want to see a selection of our news?