The Cedar of Lebanon of Acquasanta

Genoa's monumental tree register does not give ages, only measurements, so this cedar of Lebanon comes with a girth, four metres sixty one round, and nothing else: no planting date, no story attached to who put it here or when. It stands in the open square in front of the Santuario di Nostra Signora dell'Acquasanta, a working church in Acquasanta, a hillside hamlet inside Genoa's Voltri district. Cedrus libani takes its name from the mountains of Lebanon, where centuries of shipbuilding and temple construction stripped most of the ancient forests that once covered them; the species survives in Europe mainly because 18th and 19th century estates and church grounds planted it as an ornamental long before conservation became a reason to care. This one shares its piazza with a second, taller monumental tree the same register protects nearby, a coast redwood, though that one has not yet been individually verified for this page. Acquasanta sits a genuine 40 to 50 minutes from central Genoa door to door, by train to Voltri and then a bus that runs roughly hourly. The piazza itself is open and free, no gate or ticket, the cedar visible from the church steps.