World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border
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Loading... - archie zachary
- 16 Aug 2022
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Not many years ago, Norwegian schoolchildren learned that spruce trees came to Norway from the east between 2 000 and 3 000 years ago.
But ten years ago, researchers at Umeå University in Sweden discovered a tree up on Fulufjället – in Sweden just east of Trysil municipality in Norway. The tree turned out to be 9 500 years old.
The researchers decided to name the tree after Tjikko, the dog that was with them on the trip when they found the spruce specimen. The tree was thus named Old Tjikko.
New DNA studies carried out by researchers at Uppsala University now show that the very first spruce trees may have come to southern Sweden as early as 14 700 years ago.
In other words, the spruce put down roots here just after the ice from the last ice age had started retreating.
Joined the land uplift after the ice age
“Our results indicate that the spruce followed the edge of the ice cover and wandered northward,” researcher Laura Parducci tells the Swedish journal Forskning & Framsteg.
The spruce trees have always stayed below the tree line of approximately 1 000 metres.
The reason why Old Tjikko now finds itself on the barren rock near Trysil – more than a hundred metres higher than what is considered the tree line – is simply that the spruce tree rose along with the mountain it grows on during the land uplift that followed the ice age. Read More…
