The Black Poplar of Timmari
age unknownBlack Poplar
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.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. About 9.5 km / roughly a 20 minute drive west of central Matera; no public transport reaches Timmari directly. On foot from the nearest road it is a rural walk of at least an hour through the archaeological park.
- Species
- Black Poplar (Populus nigra)
- Age estimate
- Location
- Localita Fontana della Madonna, Colle di Timmari, Matera (Timmari, on the Apulian-Greek archaeological park hill, about 9.5 km west of central Matera)
- Access
- Free, on open hillside within the Timmari archaeological area. No gate, no ticket. It sits well off the beaten path: reachable on foot via forest tracks and part-paved roads through the Parco Archeologico Appulo-Greco di Timmari, and a local hiking club (CAI Matera) runs an 11 km loop trail that passes directly by it. This pass could not confirm whether a shorter direct approach by car exists; treat it as a countryside walk rather than a stroll from the Sassi.
- Getting there
- About 9.5 km / roughly a 20 minute drive west of central Matera; no public transport reaches Timmari directly. On foot from the nearest road it is a rural walk of at least an hour through the archaeological park.
Trees nearby
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
Correct a detail on this pageSuggest another tree