The Beech of Malga Brigolina

Four and a half metres of trunk, and nothing else growing within reach of its branches. Fagus sylvatica is Europe's great crowding tree: in a wood it goes up straight and clean and throws a shade so heavy that almost nothing lives beneath it. This one was left standing on its own in an alpine pasture at around 940 metres on Monte Bondone, and it grew the other way, low and broad, until Italy's national register recorded its girth at 465 centimetres on sheet 08/L378/TN/22. The meadow belongs to Malga Brigolina, a working mountain dairy at 990 metres that feeds walkers from early June to late September. The beech stands out in the grass below it with nothing around it, which is why it reads as architecture rather than as forestry. Nobody has published an age. Italy's register carries girth, height and altitude and has no age column at all, and local accounts get no further than secolare, centuries old, so the field here is left empty rather than guessed at. If you know the number, or know who measured it, tell us. The bus up the Monte Bondone road stops at Candriai, and a waymarked path called the Giro della Selva leaves the village near the football pitch and reaches the malga in about fifteen minutes, level and shaded most of the way. The pin is the register's, so expect the meadow rather than an exact spot.