The Eighth Plane of the Giardino Pubblico

Nineteen metres from the garden's biggest plane stands this one, and it spends its life being compared. It is listed at 4.02 metres round the trunk and thirty-one metres tall, which would lead the page in most cities. Next to the great plane of the Giardino Pubblico, 5.42 metres round and thirty-four tall, it looks like the younger brother, although nothing says it is younger. The figures come from the regional register alone. Italy's citizen tree register re-measured most of the garden's protected planes in 2021 but has no entry for this sheet, so no independent check of this tree has been published. It is one of nine planes in the garden on the national list, and among the eight we map it is the slimmest. It shares its history with its big neighbour. Muzio de Tommasini, botanist and podesta, opened the garden from 1854 on land bought from Benedictine nuns and planted its planes himself, according to the city's parks service. This tree carries no date of its own, but standing this close to the great plane in that planting, it is plausibly of the same generation, around 160 to 180 years. Stand between the two and the difference in the trunks is the whole lesson in what 140 centimetres of girth looks like.