The oldest tree in the Sarthe stands beside the church in Jauzé, a village most of France has never heard of. SEPENES, the association that keeps the department's inventory of remarkable trees, calls it le doyen de la Sarthe and puts it at seven to nine centuries, on a trunk 5.70 metres round. Local tradition goes further and has Vikings planting it, eight hundred to a thousand years ago. The regional tourism board repeats that story and calls it a legend in the same breath, which is the right way round. A visitor's photo caption elsewhere calls it the thousand-year yew. Nobody has produced a source for either figure, so the seven to nine centuries stands: it is the number the people who measured the tree are willing to put their name to. It carries one genuinely unusual credential. It is the only classified yew in the Sarthe that flowers as a male. Yews come in separate sexes, and the females, the ones that carry red arils in autumn, are what churchyards usually keep; this one sheds pollen in late winter instead. Access is free and it stands in the open in the bourg, not behind a wall. Reaching Jauzé takes a car. It is a regional tree rather than a national one, but if you are working your way through the old yews of France, this is the one the Sarthe puts forward.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Le bourg, next to the church, 72110 Jauzé
You can recognise it by the trunk, 5.70 metres round, standing in the open in the village centre beside the church rather than inside an enclosure. It is the only tree of that bulk in the bourg.
Free (confirmed explicitly by the regional tourism board's own listing: 'Acces au site gratuit: Oui'). It stands in the village ('le bourg'), by the church, not on enclosed private land.
No public transport found serving Jauzé, a small village in Sarthe; reachable by car. Nearest larger town is La Ferte-Bernard (SEPENES, the association that inventories Sarthe's remarkable trees, is based there), a short drive away.
In bloomIn fruit
late winter, when the male flowers open and shed pollen
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.