The Dragon Tree of the Palazzina Cinese

A Bourbon king built a Chinese pavilion in Sicily, and the dragon tree standing in front of it has outlasted every reason he had for doing so. Ferdinand III commissioned the Palazzina Cinese in 1799 from architect Venanzio Marvuglia as a retreat inside what became Parco della Favorita, part of a broader taste for chinoiserie that swept European royal courts with no particular logic attached to Sicily specifically. This Dracaena draco, about 136 years old, is the largest of several dragon trees planted around the building, its trunk now measuring six metres around and its condition tracked as good in Italy's own national tree register. The palazzina itself has been restored and reopened to the public after long closures, and the tree stands in the section of the Favorita that has always stayed open regardless, a royal hunting park turned public one generations ago. Joggers and tourists pass it daily without necessarily clocking that it predates the pavilion's current public opening by over a century, and that dragon trees like this one only flower, then branch, after decades of growth, which means this specimen's entire visible shape is a record of exactly how long it has already stood here.