The Valonia Oak of the Giardino Pubblico

This is the only valonia oak in Friuli Venezia Giulia, and it is the only tree on Trieste's entire monumental register protected for botanical rarity and nothing else. Every other entry earns its place on size, age or the look of the thing. This one is here because there is no second example within a region of 1.2 million people. At 179 centimetres round it is also one of the smallest trees on the list, which tells you how little the measurement matters in this case. The acorns are the reason the species was ever worth anything. A valonia acorn sits in a cup covered in thick shaggy scales that curl outward like a sea anemone, and those cups are extraordinarily rich in tannin. For centuries the eastern Mediterranean shipped them west by the boatload to tan leather, and the trade was large enough that the Greek and Turkish groves were managed for it. The species is semi-evergreen, holding tired leaves through mild winters and dropping them late. It grows wild in Greece, western Turkey and one wood in Puglia. Muzio de Tommasini, a botanist before he was a mayor, would have known exactly how unusual it was to put one in the ground here.