The hollow inside this plane tree once took a hundred sheep. The opening in the trunk is over three metres wide, and the space behind it still holds a dozen adults standing up. The tree came second in the 2021 European Tree of the Year vote. It stands in the Vrisi locality outside Curinga, off the SP 91 in Calabria, reached by a maintained path, and it is listed on both Calabria's regional register of monumental trees and the national one. A dendrological survey on 28 January 2021 measured it at 31.5 metres tall with a circumference of 14.75 metres. Older accounts differ in both directions, giving 18 metres of girth and only 20 metres of height. The 2021 figures are the ones with a date and a method behind them. The age is not settled either. Most accounts report botanists putting it beyond a thousand years, which goes with the local story that Basilian monks planted it in the eleventh century while building the hermitage of Sant'Elia nearby. Other coverage cites a professional estimate of about 800 years, give or take 200. Neither number comes from counting rings, because the trunk is hollow. Both are field judgements by people who look at trees for a living, and they disagree. This is Platanus orientalis, the eastern plane of Asia Minor, and not the London hybrid that lines European boulevards.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Vrisi locality, off the SP 91, comune of Curinga, province of Catanzaro, CalabriaYou can recognise it by the opening in its trunk, over three metres wide, roomy enough for a dozen people to stand inside. It stands in the Vrisi locality off the SP 91, outside Curinga.
Free. Stands in the Vrisi locality off the SP 91, reached by a maintained path (un percorso attrezzato); a genuine local and national landmark, on both Calabria's regional monumental-tree register and the national list.
No public transport; reached by car via the SP 91 near Curinga, then on foot along the maintained path.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.