“Ancient Guardian of Time: The Fortingall Yew’s Battle for Survival Amidst a Rising Tide of Overtourism”
“They are attacking this poor tree, it’s stressed, and whether that’s the reason this poor tree is not doing very well at the moment, we don’t know,” Catherine Lloyd, coordinator of the Tayside Biodiversity Community Partnership, told The Scotsman.
The Fortingall Yew is located inside the Fortingall Churchyard in Perthshire where its trunk has grown into a massive body at least 52 feet wide 23 feet high. It is known to be the oldest tree in the U.K. and potentially in all of Europe, but yews are notoriously difficult to age. It has been enclosed in a high stone and iron wall for protection since the Victorian era, though that has done little to stop handsy tourists.
Over time, the yew has grown separate trunks that appear to have split up and congregated into a smaller group of trees. Today, it almost resembles a grove of yews all its own. This behavior in the tree, however, is considered normal — especially when compared with the condition it has undergone as of late.
Researchers can’t know for sure how old it is exactly since the insides of the bark have rotted and hollowed — another typical old yew trait — but based on ring counts and historical measurements taken in the 19th century, experts estimate the yew tree is at least 2,000 years old. At most, it is over 5,000 years old.
That means that the tree could already have been alive and growing as the Great Pyramid of Giza and Stonehenge were being built, as noted by the blog of the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh.
But modern tourists are severely endangering the tree’s longevity. One person wanted to hang up souvenirs on the Fortingall tree so bad that they somehow managed to trample and destroy the metal plaque that was officially erected by the Tree Council.
Post Comment