The Yew of Froncaile
possibly around five centuries, derived from girth and published yew growth ratesEuropean Yew
This is the one tree on this page whose age comes with its arithmetic attached. The register's sheet does not simply assert a number: it says that dendrological work on yews puts a five-metre girth at somewhere between 500 and 600 years, notes that this tree measures 4.50 metres and grows in conditions poor enough to slow it further, and concludes that it may go back five centuries. That is an estimate with a method, which is rarer than it should be. The yew is 19 metres tall, on a broken northeast-facing slope so steep and so thin-soiled that almost no shrub layer grows, which is ideal ground for the Spanish ibex and hard on everything else. It is hidden among pinsapos and bare rock and takes finding. On a clear day you can see the Sierra Nevada from where it stands, 150 kilometres east. Yew is the slowest thing on this mountain and it gets slower with age, which is the whole reason the arithmetic works.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. Tolox, about 40 km east of Ronda, then a walk into the Froncaile area
- Species
- European Yew (Taxus baccata)
- Age estimate
- possibly around five centuries, derived from girth and published yew growth rates
- Location
- Froncaile, Tolox 29109, Malaga, in the Sierra de las Nieves (Tolox)
- Access
- Free, public land inside the Sierra de las Nieves; steep ground, and the tree is hidden among firs
- Getting there
- Tolox, about 40 km east of Ronda, then a walk into the Froncaile area
Trees nearby
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
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