2000-jährige Eibe

The Old Yew of Balderschwang stands in a remote high valley in the Oberallgäu district and is considered a candidate for Germany's oldest living tree, with an estimated age of up to 2,000 years. Yews (Taxus baccata) held sacred status in Celtic and Germanic tradition as boundary markers between the living and the dead — many European churchyard yews predate Christianity on the same sites. Reaching the tree involves a walk through the quiet valley of Balderschwang, one of the snowiest villages in Germany. The trunk is of remarkable girth, the canopy broad and low-sweeping — a still, almost meditative encounter with a living relic that predates the Holy Roman Empire.