What is the oldest tree in Turin?
The oldest tree in Turin is usually said to be the London plane in Parco della Tesoriera, which the regional register puts at over two hundred years and which the city calls the grandfather, although it stands 3.6 km west of this walk. On the walk itself three trees share that same age band: the plane facing the Eridano in Parco del Valentino, which at six metres round is the widest of the three, the forty metre plane at the Fontana dei Dodici Mesi, and the pedunculate oak behind the Castello del Valentino, which is the only tree in Turin outside the plane family that the register dates past two hundred years.
No Italian register carries an age in years, so nothing on this page comes from a growth ring. What Piemonte publishes is better than most. Its regional monumental tree layer, unlike the national one, gives every tree a presumed age band of under 100, 100 to 200, or over 200, along with girth, measured height, crown width, ownership, and whether the tree has since been struck off the list. That last field is the useful one. Of 391 trees in the regional layer, eleven have been removed for natural death and two for felling, and all fourteen of Turin's are still listed. The bands are why this page gives ranges instead of dates. Five Turin trees sit in the over two hundred band and four of them are planes. The counts do not agree either: the city's own walking route names fifteen trees and the local press sometimes says sixteen, while the current regional layer holds fourteen for the comune of Turin, with the downy oak on the Colle della Maddalena filed under a neighbouring municipality.
One of Turin's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip, a themed collection spanning several cities.