The Black Poplar of Timmari

Matera's hiking club walks an eleven kilometre loop to stand in front of this tree. The Black Poplar of Timmari grows at Fontana della Madonna, a spring on a hill 9.5 kilometres west of the city, and CAI Matera routes a whole day around reaching it. Its trunk measures 420 centimetres round and it stands 22 metres tall, a substantial size for Populus nigra, a species most of us meet as thin ranks of riverside trees. The spring is the reason. Black poplar is a water tree, native to floodplains and river gravels, and in the dry limestone country around Matera it can only reach that girth where water comes up to the surface. Water brought people to the hill as well: the springs here supported settlement from the Neolithic onward, and the ridge holds an Apulo-Greek site excavated by Domenico Ridola, whose finds are in Matera's archaeology museum. The San Giuliano reservoir lies below. Getting there is a walk and not a stroll. No gate and no ticket, but forest tracks and part-paved roads through the archaeological park, and almost no signposting. Plan it as an afternoon in the countryside. Nobody has dated the tree. Black poplars grow fast when young and slowly later, which makes girth a poor clock, and we would rather leave the field empty than invent a number. If you know its age, tell us.