Holiday Greetings from Old Trees

Summertime is vacation time. And the TreeSense team has also planned a few trips. They’ve brought back stories about fascinating trees. Moritz, from the Software and Data Science team, spent his vacation in Sweden and paid a visit to a special tree: Old Tjikko.

Old Tjikko

Old Tjikko is a Norway spruce (Picea abies) in Sweden's Fulufjället National Park; it grows at an elevation of 1,000 meters and is considered nothing less than the oldest tree in the world.

While the visible part of the tree, at about 400 years old, is still quite young, carbon-14 dating has determined that the root system is over 9,500 years old. The most impressive part of the tree is therefore buried underground.

Spruce trees can produce genetically identical offshoots (clones) from their roots or from low-lying branches. The first shoot to emerge from the root system lived through the end of the last Ice Age.

Old Tjikko was discovered by scientists Leif Kullmann and Lisa Öberg, who came across the spruce in 2008 while conducting research on the tree line. The name Tjikko comes from one of their dogs—though sources disagree on who owned the dog.

Since “only” Old Tjikko’s root system is that old, the title “Oldest Tree in the World” is controversial. We’d therefore like to take a closer look at a few other contenders.

The World's Oldest Single Tree

The oldest individual trees in the world are bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva) in the Inyo National Forest, at an elevation of 3,000 meters in the White Mountains between Nevada and Death Valley. Several trees there are over 4,000 years old.

For a long time, Methuselah was considered the oldest living tree among them, at 4,723 years old. The tree currently believed to be the oldest is said to be over 5,000 years old. Its tree-ring sample was analyzed in 2012, thereby dethroning Methuselah.

The World's Oldest Clone Colony

The Pando clone colony in Fishlake National Forest in Utah, USA, is a colony of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) that spans 43.6 hectares. The trunks of the trees all sprout from the same root system.

The root system is 80,000 years old. The individual trunks have a maximum lifespan of 200 years.

Pando is therefore considered one of the oldest living organisms and, weighing 6,000 metric tons, the heaviest living organism in the world.

Germany's Oldest Tree

According to the German Dendrological Society, Germany’s oldest tree is a yew (Taxus baccata) in the Oberallgäu region. It was discovered as recently as July 2025 on a grazed alpine meadow between Steibis and Balderschwang at an elevation of 1,000 meters. Based on its growth rings, its age was estimated at a plausible 1,100 years—with a possible range between 900 and 1,300 years.

The yew holds yet another record: With a trunk circumference of 5.10 meters, it is the thickest known yew in Germany.

On June 18, 2026, the yew tree was designated a National Heritage Tree. As a result, it will receive special care in the future to ensure that it continues to thrive for many years to come.