The Moreton Bay Fig of the Orto Botanico

Cagliari's botanical garden was laid out in a valley the Romans had already used, on the site of an amphitheatre and a run of Punic and Roman cisterns, and it opened on 15 November 1866. This fig is one of the trees that went in at the start. The date comes from the garden itself. Its account of its notable trees says they are the oldest specimens on the ground because they were planted during the founding phase, and it names this Ficus macrophylla in that list, alongside the ombu and the dragon tree. Allow the founding planting a decade or two beyond the opening and the fig comes out somewhere around 140 to 160 years old. Nobody has put a tape around it, so there is no girth to quote. Cagliari's other Moreton Bay figs are public property in every sense: the giant on Piazza Matteotti outside the railway station, fenced off as a precaution and argued over in the local press, and the pair on the avenue in the Giardini Pubblici. This one has had the quieter life. It grew up inside a working university collection, on five hectares designed by the architect Gaetano Cima for the garden's first director Patrizio Gennari, among people whose job is to notice what trees do. Four euros gets you in, Monday to Saturday.