The Camphor of the Royal Orchard

A second camphor tree grows in Capodimonte's Royal Orchard, arriving in the same 19th century wave of Chinese imports as its counterpart in the Garden of the Princes but growing considerably wider: 730cm around at chest height, a 20 metre height and a canopy spreading across some 450 square metres, making it the single largest-girth tree in the entire royal estate. It stands at the physical centre of the Giardino Torre, positioned beside a marble fountain in a working orchard the Bourbon court once used to grow fruit and vegetables for the royal table, an arrangement the site has restored rather than simply preserved for looks: cherry varieties known locally as O Monte still grow around its base, planted in roughly the pattern the Bourbon gardeners used. The garden closed for years of restoration before reopening its citrus and orchard collections to the public, and the camphor, too large to have gone anywhere in the meantime, has been the one constant landmark through all of it.