What is the oldest tree in Tenerife?
The oldest tree on Tenerife whose age nobody disputes is Pino Gordo, a Canary pine of roughly 700 to 800 years standing beside the TF-21 above Vilaflor de Chasna. The island's famous El Drago Milenario at Icod de los Vinos may well be older, but its species grows no annual rings and cannot be dated: current science puts it at roughly 550 to 850 years, tradition at a thousand or more, and neither figure can be checked.
Tenerife's age question has an awkward answer, because the island's most famous tree is the one nobody can date. El Drago Milenario in Icod de los Vinos is a Dracaena draco, and dragon trees lay down no annual growth rings, so there is no cross section to count and no reliable way to read years off a trunk this species builds. Current scientific work puts it near 700 years with a margin of a century or more either way. The name and the tourist literature say a thousand or more. Both figures circulate and neither can be settled. Pino Gordo, above Vilaflor de Chasna, is the oldest tree on this list with an estimate nobody argues about: roughly 700 to 800 years, on a trunk 9.36 metres round, the thickest native tree in Spain. Its neighbour 150 metres along the same short trail, Pino de las Dos Pernadas, is 500 to 600 years and 56 metres tall, the tallest native tree in Spain. The youngest here is El Gran Ficus at Puerto de la Cruz, planted in the 1870s. The two pines cost nothing to visit; the Drago and the fig both charge entry.
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