What is the oldest tree in Madeira?
The oldest tree on this list is the Witch Tree at Fanal, a til (Ocotea foetens) in the protected grove on the Paul da Serra plateau above Porto Moniz. Estimates for it run from several hundred years to 500 or 600, and Madeira's own register dates the grove around it only as centenas de anos, hundreds of years, describing a stand referenced as predating the Portuguese settlement of the island in 1419. That is the loosest kind of answer and it is the best one available, because the other eight trees on this list carry no recorded age at all.
Madeira barely records ages for its monumental trees. Eight of the ten here have none, from two different lists. The island's own inventory gives the ginkgo, the cypress at Quinta Magnolia, the copper beech at Monte and the Douglas fir at Queimadas a height, a trunk perimeter and a condition, then writes sem referencia, no reference, in the age column. Funchal's municipal list is thinner still: the araucaria at Quinta Vigia, the ombu and camphor tree in the Jardim Municipal and the pohutukawa at Palheiro appear as a code and a name, from a 2008 regional survey, with no measurement at all. That leaves the two native stands. The dragon trees at Neves are centenarios, over a century, and no more precisely. The til grove at Fanal is dated only as centenas de anos, hundreds of years, and referenced as predating the Portuguese arrival in 1419; tourism sources put the Witch Tree at 500 or 600 years with nothing published behind the number. So the honest ranking is Fanal first, Neves second, eight undated trees after them. The Douglas fir is the trap: tallest here at 39 metres, and Douglas firs grow fast.
One of Madeira's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip.