What is the oldest tree in Naples?
Naples's oldest documented tree is the Canforo del Giardino dei Principi, a camphor tree in the Real Bosco di Capodimonte planted in the early 1800s and roughly 220 years old, brought directly from China during the Bourbon era. It grows in the Garden of the Princes, a free section of the park in the north of the city.
Naples tops Italy's own official register of monumental trees, the national list created under a 2013 law, with more catalogued specimens than any other municipality in the country. Most of that count concentrates in one place, the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the former Bourbon royal hunting estate whose Garden of the Princes and Royal Orchard the park's own museum has singled out as home to six specifically monumental trees. Among those, the camphor tree of the Garden of the Princes is the one most consistently dated, at roughly 220 years old, brought from China in the early 1800s and now one of the largest camphor trees anywhere in Europe. The park is free to enter in most sections.
The yew, the oaks and their peers across other cities are collected in Europe's 10 Most Remarkable Ancient Trees.