Scientists have discovered the oldest shrub in Earth's history, believed to be 1,647 years old.

Researchers from the University of Padua in Italy have discovered a juniper in Utsjoki, Finnish Lapland, which they estimate to be 1647 years old by studying its growth rings. This makes it the oldest juniper bush in the world, according to PHYS.org.

The team conducted an analysis and found that the juniper began growing in Utsjoki in AD 260 and died in 1906. Scientists believe that the juniper may have actually started growing even earlier—put simply, it's nearly impossible to calculate the exact age of the plant. Nevertheless, this still makes the juniper the oldest shrub in the world, dated by its growth rings, and the oldest woody plant in Europe identified by this method.

According to the research group leader, Professor Marco Carrer from the University of Padua, juniper is the most widespread tree species in the world. Previous studies have shown that the plant exists from sea level to the upper limits of vegetation: from Alaska to Etna, from Japan to Scotland.

It is also an extremely eclectic species, capable of withstanding scorching temperatures and drought, for example, in sandy dunes or, conversely, in freezing conditions near glaciers. Today, this record has been joined by the record for the oldest shrub in the world.

The juniper was discovered during a visit to the Kevo Institute for Subantarctic Research at the University of Turku (Lapland). The plant was found five kilometers from the research institute in 2021.

At that time, the age of the juniper was estimated to be 1242 years. However, researchers returned to Utsjoki in 2024 and revised their dating, showing that the juniper has an incredible age of 1647 years. The research team also found four other junipers in Utsjoki that are over 1000 years old.

According to another co-author of the study, Director of the Kevo Institute for Subantarctic Research Ohto Suominen, the oldest juniper and the most ancient plant in Finland was a 1070-year-old specimen found in Lemmenjoki prior to this discovery. The age of Finnish junipers has now been improved by nearly 600 years.

In the course of the study, scientists examined old junipers from the Arctic and subarctic regions of Finland, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, and the northern Ural Mountains. Besides Utsjoki, junipers over a thousand years old were found near the Abisko research station in Kiruna, Sweden.

According to one of the study's authors, Angela Louise Prendin, she and her colleagues examined the growth rings, which provide valuable information about climate changes and vegetation development. As a result, scientists were able to calculate the exact calendar years of growth for individual junipers by correlating the growth rings of several old junipers collected in the same area.

Junipers allow scientists to study climate changes, exceptional weather phenomena, or other events that contributed to the growth of junipers thousands of years ago. The authors of the study also believe that the data they obtained can be used for accurate dating of archaeological finds of wood material.