The Yew of Piazza Vanvitelli

A European yew in a flower bed on Piazza Vanvitelli is easy to miss next to its two showier square-mates, the monkey puzzle and the feathery casuarina a few steps away. It is no less protected: Campania's monumental register measures its trunk at 270 centimetres, well past the 250 centimetre minimum the region sets for the species, on a tree only 12 metres tall. That gap between girth and height is normal for a yew. The species grows slowly and thickens for centuries after most trees would have stopped, which is exactly why an unremarkable-looking specimen can carry an old trunk. The register ties this one's age to the square's own history rather than giving a number, the same reasoning it gives the araucaria and casuarina nearby: planted when Piazza Vanvitelli was first laid out as a garden, on what had been the town's market square before. Free, outdoors, and in a civic square rather than behind the Reggia's paid gate, this yew and its two neighbours are the only entries on this page that cost nothing to see.