Ancient trees in Italy

Padua's botanical garden opened in 1545 and one of its founding plants is still alive: a dwarf fan palm that Goethe wrote an entire essay about in 1786, using it to illustrate his theory of how plants grow. We map 388 trees in 40 cities here. The oldest of them is S'Ozzastru in Sardinia, at roughly 3,000-4,000 years, possibly older (contested).

That tree sets Italy's pattern. Its oldest survivors stand less in open woodland than behind walls someone built on purpose, villa gardens, monastery cloisters, university botanical collections kept for study rather than shade. Rome's own oldest confirmed tree, a 425-year-old oriental plane, grows in a garden laid out for a cardinal. Italy's national tree register lists more monumental specimens than any other country mapped here, but carries no age field at all, so most of the dates on this site come from regional catalogues and city archives instead, the same close reading that first put a number on Goethe's palm.

Every place we map in Italy

Trieste36 trees · oldest 200 years 2

Rome31 trees · oldest 425 years 3

Milan30 trees · oldest 235-251 years 4

Florence27 trees · oldest 375 years 5

Naples24 trees · oldest 220 years 6

Palermo21 trees · oldest 200 years 7Caserta20 trees · oldest 200 years 8

Cagliari14 trees · oldest 200 years 9

Lucca14 trees · oldest 204 years 10

Genoa13 trees · oldest 200-350 years 11

Bologna12 trees · oldest 200-206 years 12

Padua12 trees · oldest 440 years 13Perugia12 trees · oldest 200 years 14

Turin11 trees · oldest 200 years 15

Venice11 trees · oldest 160-192 years 16

Trento10 trees · oldest 200-400 years 17

Como9 trees · oldest 200 years 18

Bergamo8 trees · oldest 200 years 19

Verona8 trees · oldest ~150 years 20

Sardinia7 trees · oldest 3,000-4,000 years 21Sorrento7 trees · oldest 150 years 22

Assisi6 trees · oldest 850-1,000 years 23

Bari5 trees · oldest 125-175 years 24

Ferrara5 trees · oldest 150 years 25

Modena5 trees · oldest 175 years 26Parma5 trees · oldest 190 years 27

Catania4 trees · oldest 165 years 28Matera4 trees 29Pisa4 trees · oldest 240 years 30

Sant'Alfio3 trees · oldest 2,200 years 31

Aosta1 tree · oldest 475 years 32

Cerro Veronese1 tree · oldest 300-400 years 33

Curinga1 tree · oldest 600-1200 years 34

Fara in Sabina1 tree · oldest 700-2000 years 35Fonte Colombo1 tree 36Macugnaga1 tree · oldest 500-700 years 37

Novi Ligure1 tree · oldest 300-305 years 38

Passo Manghen1 tree · oldest 700-800 years 39San Quirico d'Orcia1 tree 40

Tricase1 tree · oldest 700-900 years

109 species grow in Italy

Oaks Holm Oak 14 · Downy Oak 10 · Pedunculate Oak 6 · Cork Oak 4 · Turkey Oak 3 · Crenate Oak 2 · Northern Red Oak 2 · Valonia Oak 2 · Adriatic Oak 1 · Sessile Oak 1 · Southern Live Oak 1

Beeches Sweet Chestnut 3 · European Beech 1 · Fern-leaved Beech 1

Elms and zelkovas Caucasian Elm 3 · Field Elm 2 · Saw-leaf Zelkova 1 · Siberian Elm 1 · Wych Elm 1

Planes London Plane 49 · Oriental Plane 7 · American Sycamore 1 · Plane 1

Limes Common Lime 1 · Large-leaved Lime 1 · Lime 1 · Silver Lime 1 · Small-leaved Lime 1

Maples Montpellier Maple 1

Chestnuts, walnuts and hazels Horse Chestnut 7 · Caucasian Wingnut 4 · Butternut 1 · Pecan 1

Figs and mulberries Moreton Bay Fig 13 · White Mulberry 2 · Osage Orange 1

Conifers Cedar of Lebanon 19 · Ginkgo 16 · Mediterranean Cypress 15 · Himalayan Cedar 13 · Aleppo Pine 12 · Coast Redwood 7 · European Yew 7 · Stone Pine 6 · Atlas Cedar 5 · Bald Cypress 5 · Bunya Pine 4 · Chir Pine 3 · Monterey Cypress 3 · Montezuma Cypress 2 · Chilgoza Pine 1 · Cook Pine 1 · Corsican Pine 1 · Douglas Fir 1 · Ghost Pine 1 · Incense Cedar 1 · Japanese Cedar 1 · Monkey Puzzle 1 · Norfolk Island Pine 1 · Swiss Pine 1 · Turkish Pine 1

Palms Chilean Wine Palm 3 · Cretan Date Palm 2 · Date Palm 2 · Mexican Fan Palm 1

Fruit and blossom Wild Olive 3 · Olive 2 · Strawberry Tree 2 · Almond 1 · Greek Strawberry Tree 1 · St Lucie Cherry 1 · Wild Cherry 1

Southern hemisphere Dragon Tree 5 · Ombu 4 · Tasmanian Blue Gum 3 · Silk Floss Tree 2 · Blue Jacaranda 1 · Bottle Tree 1 · Flame Tree 1 · River Red Gum 1 · Swamp Mahogany 1

More broadleaf trees Mediterranean Hackberry 17 · Southern Magnolia 8 · Black Poplar 5 · Camphor Tree 5 · Mixed species 4 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 3 · Honey Locust 2 · Mexican Blue Palm 2 · Nepal Camphor Tree 2 · Ponytail Palm / Elephant's Foot 2 · Willowleaf Podocarp 2 · Argan 1 · Balearic Box 1 · Buddhist Pine 1 · Common Hackberry 1 · Common Hawthorn 1 · Empress Tree 1 · Etna Birch 1 · European Fan Palm / Saint Peter's Palm 1 · European Hop-hornbeam 1 · Giant Yucca 1 · Gray Poplar 1 · Horsetail Casuarina 1 · Mandarin 1 · Prickly Paperbark 1 · Prosopis torquata 1 · Southern Catalpa 1 · Sweet Osmanthus 1