Oldies But Goldies - The Secrets of Nature

trees reach the greatest age of all living things they remain rooted to the same spot for hundreds of years innumerable animals live on and from old trees it's not unusual for them to be completely dependent on a specific tree however giant trees such as these are also living monuments whose memory stretches far back into the past countless summers are recorded in their tree rings trees are the true lords of the rings [Music] people throughout europe are aware of so-called thousand-year-old trees but do they really exist where can they be found and which one is the oldest of all join us on our search for the oldest trees in germany from the alps to the north sea [Music] follow us on our journey through the seasons [Music] winter now is the best time to identify the shape of the trees we'll start our search for clues in the rhine meadows here we find gnarled sprawling giant trees which appear to be very old particularly mighty willows the snow has scarcely started to melt under the warm rays of the march sun when the willows begin to flower long before all other trees these provide the first source of food for many insects [Music] willows love to be close to water and are excellently suited as a perch for fishing kingfishers [Music] in the bavarian capital of munich there is an old waterside castle that is shrouded in a secret blutenberg castle [Music] several ancient willows stand on the banks of the stream which feeds the castle ditches locally they're commonly referred to as the thousand-year-old willows [Applause] [Music] in the past children in particular were warned against playing or even sleeping under these trees for it was believed that malicious witches who tried to seize their victims with their bony fingers inhabited the willows [Music] for a long time the true age of the willows near blutenberg castle remained unclear but recently one of the thousand-year-olds had to be failed for safety reasons this gave us an opportunity to count the tree rings there were 170 indeed willows don't live much longer than this perhaps alluvial forests aren't the best areas for longevity so could a search in the alps be more rewarding as the only native conifer to europe the larch clothes itself in a bright autumnal dress but this splendor doesn't last long needles entire branches and cones fall to the ground following the first frost some fungi only grow under larches an example is the large bolite this fungus enjoys a close relationship with its tree supplying it with water and mineral nutrients in return the lodge provides its partner with sugar larches shape the character of the alps but the oldest larch in germany can't be found in the mountains as might be thought but rather on the plains of eastern germany there is a patriarchal larch in thoringia whose trunk has a girth measuring almost five meters this tree was standing here when johann wolfgang von goethe perhaps the most famous citizen of terraria was still a young man the prince of poets now lives on through his work alone whereas the larch survives as an individual and year for year it produces cones full of seeds the fat large is estimated to be 220 years old the native home of the larch is the nordic tiger it may have been the fly agarics which often grow below larches that induce the shamans of siberia to perceive the large as the axis of the world and is a stairway to heaven the shamans used the fly agarics to prepare an intoxicating and psychedelic drink [Music] the next candidate in our search for the oldest trees also often associates with fungi pine trees can reach a height of 50 meters in favorable conditions but great height does not necessarily signify great age our bach castle is situated on a hilltop about 50 kilometers south of frankfurt it not only provides visitors with medieval architecture but with a genuine natural wonder as well [Music] at first sight there doesn't seem to be anything extraordinary about this pine except that it stands on the highest shield wall of the castle with a height of just seven meters the auerbach pine is a dwarf but at 280 years old it is the oldest scots pine in germany how has it managed to survive up here [Music] its roots only have the bit of soil which is collected between the battlement parapets as nourishment and where does the pine get enough water [Music] from it's secret for survival the long-pointed needles of the pine comb the finest water droplets from the air and these subsequently fall as rain to the ground close to the trunk pine forests are an el dorado for the most diverse kinds of ants territorial conflicts can't be avoided here tiny black ants clash with enormous carpenter ants and they're not squeamish in their dealings with their neighbors [Music] the pine has always been regarded as a fire or flambeau tree due to its wood which is rich in resin the celts use the wood to illuminate their houses and during the last century as well pine wood chips were used by farmers to light the parlor what kind of tree is inhabited by snakes and dragons at least according to legend it is said of the mythic world ash igdrasil that the end of the world is nigh when it begins to wilt in the autumn however we can find strange living things in the fallen leaves at the foot of the ash [Music] cigar-shaped animals without legs which look like ancient egyptian mummies [Music] the caterpillars of the privet hawk live on ash leaves as pupae they wait for the next spring in the fallen leaves unless a hedgehog happens to thwart their plans [Music] solitude castle near stuttgart there is an ash here which is 230 years old and an equal number of times it has lost its autumn foliage which in the case of the ash is usually shed when still green but the front runner among the old ash trees cannot be found in stuttgart but much further south in the black [Music] forest [Music] the bruger family live on the hirohof in the upper black forest ash are a familiar sight for matthias brooker when he leaves his farmhouse and sets off for work there are more than 30 of them around the grounds one of them is the oldest ash in germany our ash is around 350 years old this can only be estimated because no one knows the exact age but it's associated with the construction of our old farm which is around 350 years old both men and tree have experienced a great deal unless they're offsite a small firework display was arranged near the trunk of the tree to celebrate the wedding of my grandmother the fireworks damaged the trunk and enabled a fungus to penetrate the tree and this is now causing the tree considerable problems the wood of the ash is very hard but microorganisms have an easy time of it if the protective bark is missing there are reasons for preserving this tree for as long as possible as a natural monument but at the same time the safety of the surrounding area must be taken into consideration and things must be kept in perspective and we have to remember that all things in this world come to an end including him [Music] even the celts value these trees highly they use their wood to make weapons ash is famous for its durability and elasticity properties which prevent the bow from breaking [Music] our journey to the oldest trees takes us to the beach woods the ancient shapes of beaches can be seen scattered throughout germany [Music] the 300 year old ancient beach in northern bavaria looks like a gateway to a fairy kingdom early in the spring flowers blossom under the old tree but only until the foliage is unfurled once the beach is bloomed its feet become dark life can now be found in the tree's [Music] crown [Music] so [Music] because of its oily fruits the beach has been an important tree since primitive times providing food for man and animal in terms of emergency peach nuts were roasted to make a satisfying treat or a coffee substitute the seeds help wood mice to survive the winter and a beach nut is amazingly similar to the aphid lion the predator that never roars and which hunts tiny insects [Music] according to old wives tales a particularly high number of illegitimate children are born when there are large numbers of peach nuts so where can we find the oldest beach individuals [Music] one of the most beautiful old beaches in germany can be found not far from the north sea coast [Music] a beach on a former grazing pasture one which acquired a gnarled bulbous trunk apparently due to cattle gnawing on its park when it was young in the 17th century likewise in northern germany we find the bizarre head or suntal beach it has grown into an unusual shape bud mutations have caused this whim of nature to produce a wild zigzag growth pattern the tree has a best friend the photographer is a hinter's noise i've been taking photographs of landscapes mostly for around 35 years but my favorite and most beautiful subject is still the gremsheim zontel beach in earlier days the remarkable twisted growth led people to believe that dark powers were involved people called the bent and barely usable trees witches wood and cut most of them down today trees such as the gremsheim zontel beach are regarded as valuable natural treasures [Music] it was the most beautiful and largest tree of its kind in the world until recently when it suddenly lost the large branch that pointed to the west it didn't fall down because of a storm or other weather influences i was very sad and depressed and very concerned our search for animal species adapted specially to life on beech trees takes us back to the bavarian alps on the banks of a small mountain lake where there is no forestry old trees are allowed to die in natural death it is only in such beach trunks that one of the most beautiful and rare beetles in europe the rosalia longicorn is able to mature the male beetle only starts looking for a bride when the scent of beechwood that has recently died promises to provide a suitable nursery [Music] hmm [Music] the beach is the tree of lovers perhaps this smooth bark is the reason why people immortalize their feelings in beech trees time and time again or is this a remnant of times long gone when the beach was dedicated to friar the goddess of love [Music] the germanic people carved dividing ruins from beechwood sticks the word for letters of the alphabet in german comes from beach sticks and in this way the book owes its name to the beach an extremely peculiar aged beach stands in the southern black forest the baltzer hergot a christ statue almost totally overgrown had to be freed by a tree surgeon as it would otherwise have disappeared completely the next tree in our expedition through germany provides building material for entire cities [Music] [Applause] large spruce and furs have become rare today most of them have fallen victim to air pollution over the last century the grandfather fur in the black forest is still standing it is well over 300 years old and with a trunk girth of five and a half meters it is one of the mightiest furs in europe the blossoms of the spruce look like candles people used to bring bunches of evergreen branches into their houses during mid-winter lit candles and celebrated the beginning of a new year this is the origin of the christmas [Music] festival light is the basis of life for all trees spruce and furs however can wait for decades in the shade until they get their chance then they can grow into a 60 meter high tree that produces seed for several centuries and a strange bird benefits from this conifer seeds are a staple food of the red cross bill a further tree that could become agent can still be found living in the mountainous regions of central europe once old sycamores were common everywhere in bavarian alpine meadows in the past farmers had the right to put cattle out to graze in the pastures of the mountain woods in the summer months over the course of time the woods were thinned and soon the mountain meadows became almost wood free [Music] individual trees which are often centuries old were and remain today important sources of shade for cattle on the alpine [Music] pastures but old maple trees also serve another purpose in the alps this 350 year old sycamore provides farmers with a valuable raw material the wood of the maple is very fine which makes it suitable for producing tools and implements however the demand for the fallen leaves is at least as great as for the wood itself for centuries the fallen leaves have been raked together in the autumn to use as winter bedding material no straw is produced in mountainous areas because there are no grain fields leaves constitute a practical alternative maple trees have difficulties reproducing not just on alpine meadows but also in mountain woodland areas most of their seeds land in the larders of animals and not in the soil wood mice feed on stores of seed throughout the whole winter but nature has adopted itself to this situation and so each tree produces millions of seeds during its lifetime so that one day it can be replaced by a single descendant [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is a gigantic maple tree in the mountain woods 50 kilometers south of munich it might once have stood in a mountain pasture which has now long been abandoned the mighty tree is by far the thickest and also oldest sycamore in germany the girth of its trunk measures nine meters and according to tree experts it is more than 500 years old this is a truly proud age but still a far cry from the magical thousand so are there really trees that survive for a millennium [Music] our search must continue but what kind of tree holds the age record and where exactly is germany's oldest tree growing as might be expected the oak belongs to the club for extremely old-aged trees and for animals this is the tree of trees no other kind of tree offers a home and food to as many living creatures [Applause] in last years wild boar literally stand in food in the past domestic pigs were even specially herded into the woods where there was an abundance of acorns no other tree has been surrounded by myths as much as the oak the strange details regarding the shape of some of these old individuals really get the imagination going [Music] the germanic people attached great significance to oak trees which had been struck by lightning they were thought to be the seat of the god thor or donna in german who today has a home in the word thursday the german donner stark the heathens gave food as a sacrificial offering under such oaks this belief only died out about a thousand years ago people had increasingly fewer opportunities to place offerings under holy oaks the old trees made way for new temples constructed both from their own wood and from stone [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] saint bonifas had numerous holy oaks failed in the 8th century christian missionaries fought a regular crusade against those trees to demonstrate to the heathens the superiority of the christian god [Music] this church painting also shows the disempowered thor he is holding the bishop's rod for the missionary the lightning in his hand is impotent [Music] the roman author plenius wrote about the enormous oaks in the hersinian woods it is a fact that when the roots do not feel comfortable in the earth they push themselves up like restless and form arches as high as branches which look like gates through which whole squadrons could ride plenius took germanian oaks to be witnesses of the beginning of time by contrast we have a slightly more accurate idea of how old our oaks really are these ostensibly thousand-year-olds have in reality experienced the deer rot a mere 500 times [Music] another traditional site of tournaments this oak has been the stage for bitter duels on over 300 occasions [Music] so [Music] [Music] at first we might not associate the white stork with old trees but at one time all starks built their aries high up in the treetops of an ancient tree as in streamlog in the extreme northeast of germany it was only later that they sought the proximity of humans and began nesting on the roofs of houses [Music] it is possible that the stork oak of streamlog was present before the village existed there are no records of this but for as long as residents can recall year for year a pair of storks raised their young in the dead crown of the old oak [Music] bridegroom oak 23701 oy teen has to be the most remarkable postal address in germany to be more exact this is a 400 year old oak which for 80 years has had its own postal code the artestau delivers mail to the tree every day these are love letters to people unknown sent here from all over the world we deliver several thousand letters here a year i've been coming here for over four years and i'm always glad to come i also enjoy reading the postcards and letters some married couples have even got to know each other in this way an oak tree as a marriage agency here postal secrecy has been waived everyone who comes here can read the letters and postcards take them away with them and return them when they don't want them anymore on a single day in may we receive 90 letters a tree as a letterbox that is amusing but in the past old oaks were misused for quite different purposes court and gallows oaks have long since gone out of fashion but there are still several of them standing in the countryside today some of them may be 700 years old [Applause] [Music] our search didn't reveal older oaks even amongst the largest and strongest at over 700 years old the saint wolfgang oak close to the bank of the danube must be the oldest oak in bavaria but according to legend it is older still it is said that the holy saint wolfgang delivered stirring sermons under it over a thousand years ago [Music] right up in the north not far from the baltic and north seas is the german oak with the thickest base 13 meter girth measured at the base of the trunk the cuthols aiche is also one of the country's oldest oaks six hundred kilometers further south is the koitsai with its characteristic growth form its age is estimated at 700 years this too is still a long way from the magical thousand however its lifespan has been long enough to have witnessed almost the complete development of european music [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] will we find the thousand-year-olds in areas where the climate is particularly rough the yew tree has become rare throughout central europe for centuries woods were trolled to find the tree with its hard wood for use in weapon manufacture and where it is still found its life is made difficult by faster growing plants the effects of this are also felt by the used seedlings the u from balderswang therefore stands alone on the alpine meadow in southwestern bavaria without even a single descendant having joined it over the last centuries almost every part of the eu is poisonous in spite of this it attracts many animals in the autumn what looks like a berry is a highly poisonous seed encased in a sticky sweet coating the only part of the u which is not poisonous this is what the animal visitors are after [Music] in contrast with most other conifers the ewe relies not on the wind but on animals for dissemination of its seeds and the u does not merely have its offspring disseminated by air mail but also relies on land-based seed transportation ewes are extremely slow growing it takes several centuries for the tiny seedling to become a tree as big as the you from baldusvang whose age has been estimated by dendrologists at over 900 years its seed had germinated even before the birth of kaiser friedrich barbarossa and before henry the first ascension to the english throne in the year eleven hundred we still have not been able to find a tree which exceeds the 1 000 year mark however there is one last kind of tree we should take a look at [Music] it is the linden or lime tree which is the oldest and perhaps most beautiful tree of all the linden is still venerated within our culture today the germanic people dedicated the tree to the goddess friar later the virgin mother took the place of the goddess of love this was how friar lime trees became maria lime trees and lime wood is the lignum sacrum the holy wood that is still used to carve figures of the virgin saint bonifas who had led such a remorseless campaign of annihilation against the holy oaks even advised planting maria lime trees on the old holy sites so what had begun as a crusade against trees one day turned into a regular tree planting campaign but sometimes the goddess of love still appears to be pulling the strings the name linden tree is derived from the ancient word lentos which means bendable or soft limes bear lots of fruit but there seems to be one problem with this fewer than half of the seeds germinate under laboratory conditions only almost all old lime trees are populated by firebugs which feed on the flesh of the fruit lying beneath the tree and break it down with their saliva this possibly increases the seeds potential to germinate which would mean that the bugs live in symbiosis with the tree the reproductive instinct of the bugs is awakened by light and warmth hundreds of the attractive bugs can live in just one lime tree love and death are direct neighbors here often limes together with their bug community grow in church yards such as the 400 year old cemetery lime tree in steinberg kesher close to the danish border so is the oldest tree in germany a cemetery line is the record holder to be found in a village or is it somewhere in undisturbed countryside we are still a few hundred kilometers from our goal [Music] we have spent two years looking for germany's oldest trees and have followed up clues from newspapers books and narratives and while we have shot films in africa and australia some of our best experiences have been had here during this expedition through our home country [Music] more than once we have spent a night under an old tree in a thousand star hotel [Music] in the course of our travels we have driven through countless linden avenues should the queen of trees simply be left standing at the roadside [Music] the effects of saint bonifas can still be seen today church services are still held once a year under some old lime trees in germany this is the case with the old zinger linda near lake kemsey close to the austrian border and with bizarre growth the 700 year old tilly linden in upstate in northern germany like most of its aged sisters presents a curious picture it is a typical example of the village limes which are lovingly maintained and cared for in many places some of these become the focal point of their community once a year [Music] [Applause] [Music] a tradition which today only survives sporadically young people assemble beneath the village lime tree on festive days such as for example the parish fair wearing traditional costumes [Music] [Applause] [Music] steps are placed alongside the dancing lime and limestone just once a year during the parish fair musicians and dancers use these to climb up to the first story of the tree [Music] [Applause] [Music] after the dancing in traditional costumes the inhabitants of the village spend an entire weekend celebrating in and under the old tree people dance high up in the crown of the old lime tree which has been standing here undisturbed for centuries and it might still be standing here when the tradition has long been forgotten shank langsfield in the heart of germany this village also accommodates an ancient dancing line this is germany's oldest tree we have achieved our aim its age has been estimated at 1100 years this tree germinated when the maya culture was still in its zenith the lime was already 305 years old when construction of the cologne cathedral began and it was a veteran tree when columbus discovered america and the 30 years war raged a living memorial which still produces leaves and blossoms [Applause] [Music] lime flowers still smell sweet even when they have no more nectar to offer bumblebees above all waste their last reserves of energy on a vain search for food sometimes a veritable bumblebee cemetery forms under flowering lime trees in warm dry weather [Music] for stefan kuhn of the german tree archive the lime is a very special tree i first came here to the dancing lime in shenklingsfeld in august 1985. it was the german tree archives maiden trip at that time we didn't measure the tree but i've rectified that today through reconstruction we can say that the lime tree used to have one enormous closed trunk then according to legend it was struck by lightning which is why we now have four smaller trunks which are separate from one another the result is a 17.90 meter trunk when we consider that this is one tree then this is really an amazing size a king among the lords of the rings who however has lost his tree rings over the course of time we know that the tree had a trunk girth of 17.90 meters and we also know that the dancing limes grow in slow motion this suggests that we genuinely have a tree here which is 1 000 years old how many more years might this tree stand here [Music] the life of tree patriarchs is often ended by stormy weather conditions the maria linden from shrifting to the west of munich recently fell victim to a storm in this manner the holy wood has been cracked the enormous tree is lying down [Music] however it's not always the storm itself that lays waste to the tree often only branches break off from the rotten trunks [Music] these are then colonized by fungi when this occurs the tree begins a grueling often century-long battle to survive a battle the tree always loses in the end but everything in nature is incorporated in a perfect cycle new life can only begin where death creates a space for it just a few years ago the oldest beech tree in germany stood here countless small animals now live on the mountains of rotting wood and soon new tender shoots will appear where light is once again able to penetrate [Music] people may try to stop the decay and help the old trees and this may succeed for a while [Music] but in the end neither technology nor laws are able to prevent aging and death nature's weapon against death is the next generation year for year numerous seeds germinate and numerous saplings lunge into the competition for light [Music] [Applause] [Music] every old tree has to produce millions of seeds during its lifetime so that it could one day be replaced by just a single descendant it is up to us humans to give those that survive sufficient space and the time to grow old maybe a thousand years old [Music] you

Channel: The Secrets of Nature

Views: 33,102

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Keywords: orf universum, documentary, blue chip, natural history, secrets of nature, planet earth, natura, naturaleza, documentales, wildlife, grandes documentales, trees, forests

Id: OxWdtCq6e4M

Length: 58min 31sec (3511 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020