Botanists confirmed recently that a towering tree discovered in Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains is an entirely new species, Tessmannia princeps.
The research team is led by Andrea Bianchi, a horticulturist and researcher at Muse Science Museum in Trento, whose group worked with Tanzanian experts to document the species and its remote habitat.
Discovering Tessmannia princeps
Bianchi and local plant specialists were mapping plants in the Boma la Mzinga and Uluti Village Land Forest Reserves in 2019 when they nearly walked into a gray‑barked giant they could not name.
“This was already quite a shiver‑down‑your‑back moment because if they didn’t know [the species], it could have been something interesting,” Bianchi recalls.
Follow‑up surveys in the Udzungwa Mountain region revealed only about one hundred mature individuals scattered across two steep valleys, each tree crowned well above the surrounding canopy.
The specific name princeps, Latin for “most eminent,” nods to crowns that poke above neighboring foliage and to thick, consecutively buttressed trunks that command the landscape.
How old and how tall
The largest measured trees rise roughly 130 feet and carry trunks close to nine feet across, with extra girding from three‑foot‑deep buttresses.
Cross‑sections from a naturally fallen trunk revealed 12-15 growth rings in a single centimeter, a pace so slow it suggests an age of 2,000-3,000 years for the biggest survivors.
Bianchi describes counting those rings as “patient work that feels like peering back through the lifetimes of civilizations,” a statement he shared while discussing the discovery with colleagues.
Such longevity places Tessmannia princeps alongside bristlecone pines and giant sequoias on the shortlist of the planet’s most durable trees, although the new species lives in humid rainforest rather than the drier mountain slopes that old bristlecones prefer.
Tessmannia princeps anatomy
Scientists classify the tree as a canopy emergent species, meaning its crown stands above the general forest roof, harvesting full sunlight while shaping micro‑climates below.
Immense buttress roots fan from the base, some arching more than 49 feet high and channeling mechanical stress into the shallow rainforest soil.
Glossy leaves carry dozens of leaflet pairs, and the creamy white petals tipped with yellow glands emit a fragrance that local guides notice long before the trunk comes into view.
Despite its stature, the tree is unarmed, no thorns or spines, relying instead on sheer size and chemical defenses yet to be cataloged.
Why they stayed hidden
The Udzungwa mountain mass sits within the Eastern Arc Mountains, an ancient chain famed for pockets of endemism created by rugged topography and long‑lasting climate stability.
Many villages in the chain lie at valley floors, while the discovered grove perches between 4,200 and 5,000 feet in elevation, far from cultivated plots and traditional footpaths.
Frequent cloud cover, steep ridges, and legally protected status after 2016 limited timber scouts and poachers, allowing the slow‑growing population to mature undisturbed.
Until the 2019 trek, even seasoned local botanists believed all large legumes in the region had been recorded, a reminder of how easily towering organisms can evade science in dense rainforest.
Discovering Tessmannia princeps there was a surprise to everyone, even the locals.
Keeping Tessmannia princeps alive
The newly described species meets International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria for “Vulnerable” status, owing to its tiny range and fewer than 1,000 estimated individuals.
Logging is banned inside the reserves, yet nearby farms, bush‑meat hunting trails, and potential road upgrades pose indirect threats through soil compaction and fire risk.
Arafat Mtui of the Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Center notes that each fresh discovery “prioritizes urgent study on ecology, distribution, and threats,” underscoring the tree’s role as a flagship for corridor restoration.
Community‑based programs that compensate landowners for forest protection now cite T. princeps as evidence that conserving narrow habitat strips can safeguard irreplaceable biodiversity.
What ancient trees teach us
Longevity in wet tropics is rare because fungi, insects, and storms accelerate decay, so the endurance of these trunks sparks new questions about wood chemistry and dendrochronology in humid settings.
Comparisons with the 4,800‑year‑old bristlecone pine Pinus longaeva highlight convergent survival strategies: dense wood, slow metabolism, and strategic growth spurts that coincide with favorable decades.
By storing prodigious amounts of carbon for millennia, each Tessmannia princeps stabilizes soils, seeds understory diversity, and chronicles regional climate swings in its tightly packed rings.
Researchers now plan radiocarbon dating on live cores to refine age estimates and test whether rainfall patterns leave identifiable chemical signatures, data that could sharpen regional climate models.
The study is published in Phytotaxa. Photo credit: Bianchi, Tomasi, et al/Phytotaxa.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
—–
