What is the oldest tree in Bucharest?
Bucharest's oldest tree is the Dudul din Batiștei, a white mulberry in the courtyard of Batiștei Church, reliably dated to over 200 years old with a traditional claim, tied to a local legend about Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu, that pushes it past 300. It predates the church's current building and the streets around it.
The Dudul din Batiștei carries two different ages depending on which claim is trusted. A 1993 Romanian survey of protected natural sites lists it conservatively at over 200 years, a figure that would put its planting sometime in the early 19th century. Local tradition, recorded on a plaque in the porch of the church whose courtyard it still stands in, pushes that further: the story of a boy named Manciu telling Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu that the tree would outlive him implies a planting date before the prince's execution in 1714, over 300 years ago. Neither claim has a documented planting record to settle the gap, which is common for Bucharest's oldest trees generally; none of the four on this page has a precisely dated origin. What is not disputed is the mulberry's status as the oldest living tree in the capital by consensus among Bucharest's own local historians and heritage writers, ahead of Cișmigiu's plane and hazel by at least several decades under even the most conservative reading of both ages.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.