The oldest old pine in Europe

A Bosnian pine tree found in southern Italy grows lush in a remote area of ​​the national park during 1,230 years.

The name Italus is 1,230 years old in the Pollino, Italy national park, the oldest in Europe according to a study published in mid-May in Ecology magazine. The team's test results showed that pine trees grew rapidly in recent decades with more large round trees around the body, National Geographic reported.

Italus pine in Pollino park has a life of 1,230 years.(Photo: National Geographic).

The findings indicate that some plants can survive for centuries despite experiencing strong climatic fluctuations. For example, this ancient pine germinated during a cold period during the Middle Ages and lived through much warmer weather periods, including droughts. Analysis of plant growth over the years with changing conditions can help the team better understand how large trees respond to modern climate change.

Gianluca Piovesan and colleagues from the University of Tuscia caught the elderly Bosnian on the steep rocky slope in Pollino Park. They soon realized that the determination of the actual age of plants was not as simple as assessing the round tree age. The middle part of the body, which contains the oldest tree rings, is not intact."The interior wood is like dust, we have never seen anything like that. It lacks at least 20 cm of wood, representing many years of age," Alfredo Di Filippo, team member save, said.

The roots of the tree are more intact, so the team decided to try to determine if the age of the tree was used, using a new method that incorporates some current techniques. Although both stem and root produce annual tree rings, they can grow at different rates that do not correspond to growth rates. However, exposing root radiocarbon dating allows researchers to determine when plants germinate. They then compared tree rings in specimens taken from the stem and root to find out the number of missing years.

The age of Bosnian pine is impressive between the sparse population in the region over the past millennium, according to researcher Oliver Konter at Mainz University, Germany, who found a 1,075-year-old pine tree in northern Greece. . Although in the park there are thousands of Bosnian pine trees, mostly only 500-600 years old. The team found only three other plants that are more than 1,000 years old.