New Tree Species Discovered – and It’s 3000 Years Old!

In Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains, a group of botanists found a new species of rainforest tree, one that could be up to 3,000 years old. Since it grows on the site of a forest restoration project, it has good chances of long-term survival.

“When new species are identified, conservationists like me prioritize studying their ecology, distribution, population size and threats, ensuring appropriate conservation measures are taken,” says Arafat Mtui, a conservationist at Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Centre.

First discovered in the Boma la Mzinga and Uluti Village Land Forest Reserves in the Udzungwa mountains in 2019, the hundred mature Tressmannia princeps – from the Latin word for “most eminent,” a reference to their crowns towering 40 meters above the ground – turned out to be a new species, and some of them could be up to 3,000 years old. Indeed, the sample taken from a fallen tree revealed that there were between 12 and 15 rings in a single centimetre. Due to its low numbers and tiny distribution, the T. princeps tree population is vulnerable to extinction. Fortunately, the two village land forest reserves where they grow are located within the Udzungwa Corridor, a 75-kilometre area of former farmland, which will link the Uzungwa Scarp Nature Forest Reserve with the Kilombero Forest Nature Reserve and the Udzungwa Mountains National Park to the north-east. Discoveries like the new T. princeps could provide powerful incentives for conservation efforts.