Where is the oldest plant on the European continent?

International research team coordinated by the University of Padua discovers 1647-year-old shrub in northern Finnish Lapland.

Common juniper ages across the tundra biome. The numbers represent the maximum juniper age and the number of individuals sampled at each site. Pie charts show the percentages of living (green) and dead (gray) individuals collected.

The oldest woody plant on our continent is not a majestic tree
that has escaped the cuts and fires of past centuries, but a shrub: a common juniper, of much more modest size, which grows in northern Finnish Lapland.

Although the stem is no more than 10 centimetres long, this plant has reached the incredible age of 1647 years, surpassing by more than four centuries the oldest trees currently recognised in Europe and becoming the oldest shrub on the planet.

The discovery is the result of the work of an international team of researchers coordinated by Prof. Marco Carrer, forest ecologist at the Department of Land and Agro-Forestry Systems Department of the University of Padua.

The study Common juniper, the oldest nonclonal woody species across the tundra biome and the European continent was recently published in the journal ‘Ecology, Ecological Society of America.