Iran is Home to One of the World’s Oldest Trees

This is a follow-up in spirit to last week’s post, “Meet Venezuela’s National Tree,” which was intended to help (re)humanize a nation that has been much maligned in the media. Iran has gotten a worse rap and for longer. US Americans have held negative attitudes against Iran for close to five decades, when 52 US Americans were taken hostage at the embassy in Tehran in 1979. I was only ten years old but I clearly remember the ugly vitriol that erupted at the time. (“Bomb Iran,” a parody of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann,” was actually on the radio.) The hate never really fully went away. I’ve since learned the sordid history of US meddling in Iran’s affairs, which puts the 1979 incident into context, and makes me skeptical of current narratives from establishment politicians and press about what’s happening there and how the US should respond.

Iran was formerly known as Persia, and its cultural history goes back at least 2500 years. This is beyond the reckoning of citizens of a nation marking a mere 250 year anniversary in 2026. Given this long habitation, it’s no surprise that they give a place of special honor to a venerable tree that is even more ancient. Meet Sarv-e Abarkuh—سرو ابرکوه—aka the Cypress of Abarkuh, who is estimated to be at least 4000 years old.

This particular tree is a specimen of Mediterranean Cypress, known scientifically as Cupressus sempervirens. Cupressus is derived from the Greek kypárissos (κυπάρισσος). Cyparissus (as the name is Anglicized) is a mythological boy who accidentally killed his tamed stag. He was so sad he begged Apollo to let him mourn forever, so the god turned him into a Cypress tree. The sap that drips from the tree’s bark is the boy’s tears. Semper is Latin for “always” and virens for “green,” hence “evergreen” with virens also having the sense of “vigorous” or “flourishing.” In Persian, سرو “sarv” is the word for Cypress, and also for Juniper and Arborvitae.

C. sempervirens is in the Cypress Family, Cupressaceae, along with Redwoods and Sequoias, Junipers and Cedars. Of the ten longest-lived species of tree, six are in this family. Like all members of this family the Mediterranean Cypress is a non-flowering, cone-bearing plant. The cones might look small fruits, but they are actually akin to pine cones.

Sarv-e Abarkuh is 82 feet tall with a trunk 37 feet in circumference. You can see it on Google Streetview here, or get a tour from this charming Iranian girl here. Great drone footage really shows off the tree here. Sarv-e Abarkuh is an official national natural monument and is protected by the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran.

Legends surround the Sarv-e Abarkuh. Some say it was planted by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, which would make it closer to 3000 years old, and others by Noah’s son Japheth after the Great Flood, which was a little over 4000 years ago by Young Earth Creationist reckoning. The tree’s age was scientifically estimated to be between 4000 and 4500 by a Russian botanist in the 1970s.

Marco Polo, the famous explorer from Venice, saw the tree and described it:

“One of the cypress trees I have visited in Iran is a cypress tree in the Abarkuh region. It falls onto the land of Abarkuh like a green waterfall from the sky, and from every direction you enter Abarkuh, you encounter an ancient, fresh, and green cypress tree, like a green lighthouse that calls us to the port of the desert sea and the shining sun, welcoming us.”

The Cypress tree has been a symbol of grace, beauty, endurance, strength and eternal life in that part of the world for millennia. It has long been common motif in art in Persia/Iran.

As it turns out, the paisley is a stylized Cypress tree, with the curved tip representing the top of the tree bending in the wind.

In classical Persian poetry, the Cypress is often used as a metaphor for the “graceful figure and stately gait of the beloved.”

The tree has survived invasions and multiple dynasties. Fortunately, the town where it’s located is not a military target, but as history demonstrates all too well, that’s not enough to keep a place off the target list. Let us hope it survives our own violent age.

We must remember in these tense times that we regular people around the world have more in common with each other than we do with our own elite classes, who push propaganda on us for their own power and enrichment, and whose wars are their not ours. One value found universally, as seen by the Sarv-e Abarkuh, is a reverence for very old trees.

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I recommend this article from a Substack dedicated to Iranian culture:

National Animal of Iran

National Bird of Iran

National Pet of Iran