What is the oldest tree in Madeira?

Madeira's age question runs into a flat wall: the island's own register of monumental trees mostly does not carry ages. Four of the six trees here, the ginkgo in the Jardim Botanico, the cypress at Quinta Magnolia, the copper beech at Monte and the Douglas fir at Queimadas, are listed for size alone, with sem referencia, no reference, in the age column. The survey recorded height and perimeter, not years. That leaves the two native stands. The dragon trees at Neves are described as centenarios, over a century, and no more precisely than that. The til grove at Fanal is dated only as centenas de anos, hundreds of years, and is referenced as predating the Portuguese arrival on an uninhabited island in 1419; the single tree within it that visitors know as the Witch Tree is put at 500 or 600 years by tourism sources, with nothing published behind that number. So the honest ranking is Fanal first, Neves second, and four undated giants after them. The Douglas fir is the trap here: it is the tallest tree on the list at 39 metres, and Douglas firs grow fast, so height says nothing about its age.