As of: March 27, 2024, 7:28 a.m
By: Katarina Amtmann
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The Old Yew of Balderschwang.
It could be the oldest tree in Germany.
© IMAGO / Zoonar
The oldest tree in Germany may be in Bavaria.
It could have already taken root in the times of the Pharaohs.
Balderschwang - Bavaria has a rich history.
Spectacular finds such as the recent traces of a dinosaur in Richelbach prove this.
The Free State also holds several records, for example the oldest humanistic high school in Germany is in Franconia.
But that's not all.
Old Yew from Balderschwang: “Possibly the oldest tree in Germany”
One of the oldest trees in Germany - if not the oldest - is in the Allgäu and is known as the “Old Yew of Balderschwang”.
He even has a Wikipedia entry.
“The Old Yew of Balderschwang stands in the high valley of Balderschwang in the Oberallgäu district.
It is possibly the oldest tree in Germany,” it says.
The seven meter high tree is located just behind the town exit.
At first you could easily mistake it for two, because two trunks can be seen.
However, these come from a root, as
allgaeu.de
reports.
The tree is said to be well over 1500 years old.
(By the way: Our Bavaria newsletter informs you about all the important stories from the Free State. Sign up here.)
Old yew tree from Balderschwang: “I can hardly imagine what the world around this tree looked like”
To make it clear how long the tree has been standing, the website draws a picture: Late Antiquity ended in the sixth century and the Early Middle Ages began.
The Western Roman Empire collapsed, a plague epidemic claimed numerous lives in the Mediterranean region, and a previously little-known ethnic group settled in the northern foothills of the Alps and was mentioned for the first time in documents: the Bavarians.
“Today it is difficult to imagine what the world around this tree once looked like.
And what has happened since then.
“You will now realize what power this place has,” enthuses the portal.
Something similar can be read at
allgaeu-urlauber.de
: “The old yew tree near Balderschwang could bear the title of 'Germany's oldest tree'.
At an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 years old, the tree may have already taken root in the picturesque Allgäu during the heyday of ancient Rome or even the pharaohs.” Whether the yew in Balderschwang is really the oldest tree in Germany cannot be said definitively.
Because “as with many trees that apparently germinated in a time long past, it is difficult to determine the actual age,” reports
baumpflegeportal.de.
European Yew: Determining the age of the tree is difficult
The European yew grows slowly and reaches a considerable age, without being betrayed by the girth of the trunk or the height of the tree.
The trunks are complex and partially overgrown, and the tree rings are hardly measurable at a young age.
“From the age of 250, the trunk also decays internally.
Determining the age using tree rings becomes almost impossible,” the portal continues.
Whether it is the oldest tree in Germany or not, the fact that the Old Yew of Balderschwang is one of the oldest in Germany seems undisputed.
(came)
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