La Scibretta, Bordighera

Bordighera calls itself the queen of palms, but its symbol is a fig. La Scibretta, as the town calls this Moreton Bay fig beside the town hall, is 11.8 metres round on Italy's national list of monumental trees, with a crown that spreads sideways far more than it climbs. In summer the lawn under it turns into the Scibretta Arena, with open-air concerts beneath the branches. In 2017 the crown had thinned and the deputy mayor launched a rescue, calling the tree dear to the town and a draw for the dozens of people who come up every day to photograph it. Experts assessed its health and stability that November, and the dead wood came out in March 2018. The species is from the rainforests of eastern Australia, where it often starts life high on another tree and strangles its host with its roots. Here it drops aerial roots from its limbs that thicken into extra trunks and prop up the crown. Local accounts say it has stood here for more than a century; nobody has published a planting date. Sources disagree on its size: one garden directory gives about ten metres round and eighteen tall, the register 11.8 and 14. It stands in public space and costs nothing to see.