The South Oak of Strada del Gioco

The two oaks of Strada del Gioco differ by eight centimetres of girth and one metre of height, and they stand 150 metres apart. This is the thinner and taller of the pair: 422 centimetres around, 22 metres up, and nothing at all on record about its age. Part of what a downy oak is worth in Umbria is what grows under it. Quercus pubescens is one of central Italy's classic truffle hosts, the fungus forming on oak roots in exactly the limestone soils these trees favour, and a productive oak is a tree with an argument for being left standing when a hillside gets cleared. Whether that is this particular tree's biography, nobody has written down. Prepo is a working edge of Perugia rather than a monument to it, about three kilometres southwest of the centre and 370 metres up. There is no garden here, no plaque and no gate, just two very large oaks on a lane, which is a different sort of pleasure from the cedars that hold the city's squares. Come in winter for the second one: downy oak hangs onto its dead leaves through the cold months, and a copper crown on a bare slope carries a long way. Nobody has dated either oak. Italy's register has no age column and no second source names them, so what exists is a girth, a height and a point on a map, and the point is good to within a lane rather than a trunk.