Discovered: The oldest plant in the European continent

by the University of Padua
Jan. 24, 2025

An international research team, coordinated by the University of Padua, has recently discovered the oldest woody plant in the European continent. It is not a majestic tree, but a common juniper shrub that grows in northern Finnish Lapland. With a trunk that does not exceed 10 centimetres in height, this shrub has reached the incredible age of 1647 years, surpassing by more than four centuries the oldest recognised trees in Europe.

The research, led by Marco Carrer, a forest ecologist and professor at the Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Padua, has been published in the journal «Ecology» of the Ecological Society of America. The study, titled “Common juniper, the oldest nonclonal woody species across the tundra biome and the European continent” has revealed surprising details about this species.

Keep reading: https://www.unipd.it/news/discovered-oldest-plant-european-continent

Read the Ecology paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.4514