For ancient tree, millennium's change is nothing new

This great yew at Crowhurst has lived through four millennia

December 31, 1999
Web posted at: 2:11 p.m. EST (1911 GMT)

From Correspondent
Richard Blystone

CROWHURST, England (CNN) -- Today's generation of human beings is one of the few who ever experience the turning of a millennium. But there are other living things on Earth for which it's not so special -- like the great yew at Crowhurst, south of London.

Botanists say this venerable tree has seen four millennia come and go -- 4,000 winters and 4,000 summers.

It was already ancient in the time of Jesus, let alone when the church that stands nearby was built.

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England's veteran trees, like the ancient oaks near Windsor Castle, will stand after the season of those humans now alive is long passed -- charting the chronicles of sun and rain in their rings, indifferent to the turning of human pages.

Crowhurst's great yew is partly dead. The core where its infant sapling grew has been vacant for many centuries.

But the exterior is still bursting with life -- its own, and those of its guests, from birds to bugs.

According to foresters, the tree's hollow is a survival strategy, providing resilience against the tens of thousands of gales and icestorms a tree has to cope with in the long haul.

Perhaps it offers a lesson for an age obsessed with style and surface.

For people who can eat fresh strawberries year-round; listen to Gregorian chants one minute and rock 'n' roll the next, all the fashions of the era's seem to co-exist, but not here.

This tree has one fashion that never changes: Green is the new green. The tree knows what it will be wearing next year.