The Olivastro of Santa Maria Navarrese

Somebody tried to burn this tree down in the early 1960s and the fire scars are still on the trunk. The olivastro of Santa Maria Navarrese survived the arson and is still rated in good condition by the region's own foresters, despite a trunk that is partly hollow, which is the usual state of an olive this old. It stands in the village square beside the church of Santa Maria di Navarra, built in 1502 and, on every estimate anyone has offered, many centuries younger than the tree next to it. Sardinia's forestry agency measures the trunk at 8.40 metres around at 1.3 metres up, with a crown of 9 to 10 metres. The national register gives a slightly larger figure, 9.05 metres, probably taken at a different point on the trunk; nobody has reconciled the two. The age is stated loosely on purpose. The regional agency calls it millenario, at least a thousand years, and gives no number. Local press quotes botanists at about 2,000. Neither figure comes with any working attached, and no one has published a dating. The Region declared it a natural monument in January 1994, along with the other old olives, carobs and hackberries in the same square. It is free, in the open, and a short walk up from the harbour.