The Tintitaco

This tree has no English name. Sardinians call it the tintitaco, the Italian tree registry that keeps the fullest record of it translates that as the Admiral's Tree, and Prosopis torquata, a thorny mesquite from the dry country of northwestern Argentina, is otherwise close to unknown in European parks. The name points at the story local sources tell. An English naval commander, a ship that put into Cagliari to sit out a storm with a cargo of exotic plants, and this one left behind as a gift to the city. It is repeated in several places and documented in none, so read it as the city's own account rather than as a record. The measurements come with the same caution. The national register lists the trunk at 3 metres round; the Italian tree registry gives 5.7 metres, taken at ground level because the trunk divides low, at about 1.3 metres. Both are right at the height they were measured. Age splits the same way: roughly 166 years on the registry's most recent update, around 200 in local reporting, and no figure at all on the national sheet. The state of it is not in dispute. One heavy limb rests on scaffolding and a metal cage holds the trunk on one side. It is alive, protected under Sardinian law, and very obviously being kept that way.