The Oak of the Giardino Ducale

Lightning took a large part of this oak's crown and it is still standing, held together with steel and visited by climbing arborists. It was planted at the centre of the Giardino Ducale while Francesco V was duke, though the sources disagree on when: one puts it at 1854, the comune's own account says between 1840 and 1850. Either way it is around 175 years old, 25 metres tall, and 5.4 metres round the trunk, which makes it the thickest tree we have mapped in Modena. It is a veteran rather than a specimen in its prime, and the page is better for saying so. Since the strike it has carried a dynamic bracing system, cables that flex with the tree instead of holding it rigid. A 2019 piece described bracket fungi, decay in the wood and beetle activity and argued for urgent treatment. In March 2022 the comune sent certified climbers into the canopy to take out deadwood. Decay is not the same as dying. An oak can hollow for decades and keep going, and rotten wood in a living tree is the rarest habitat in a city park. The garden is free and open daily, ten minutes' walk from Piazza Grande. The oak stands near the Corso Canalgrande side.