Forty and a half metres of silver fir stand at the far edge of Moesgård's park, over a graveyard that belongs to a family rather than a parish.
Silver Fir
Abies alba
A silver fir this old is rare precisely because the species is not: Abies alba covers mountain slopes across central Europe by the million, so a single named, individually remarkable specimen stands out against a background of forestry. We map 5 of them, in 5 cities.
The Waldhaustanne in the Bayerischer Wald is Germany's tallest, thickest and oldest documented silver fir, unrecorded until a family out walking reported it in 2020: about 53 metres tall, 6.93 metres round and roughly 605 years old, reached by a boardwalk built to keep boots off its roots. In Romania's Southern Carpathians the Guardian of Cibin, about 500 years old, takes eight men with outstretched arms to circle. On Velebit, Croatian foresters call Jela Car, the emperor fir, the largest silver fir left in Europe. Aarhus's stands forty and a half metres over a family graveyard moved into Moesgård's park in 1926.
Aarhus
Cheile Cibinului
It takes eight men with their arms outstretched to get round this fir, according to a Sibiu newspaper, and at about 42 metres it is taller than a twelve-storey building.
Perušić
Every other fir on this stretch of Velebit grows to a normal size.
Photo: Fraxinus Croat (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Priekulė
A signpost at a crossroads outside Priekulė points down a side road and reads Europinis kėnis, one kilometre.
Zwieslerwaldhaus
Germany's tallest, thickest and oldest documented silver fir went unrecorded until 2020, when a family out walking reported it.
Photo: Andred12 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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