The Ginkgo of Piazza Indipendenza

Verona's official monumental-tree register lists this ginkgo as a group rather than a single trunk, an average circumference of 323cm and average height of 23.5 metres across the specimens growing together in Piazza Indipendenza, sharing the same small garden as the square's much taller plane tree. Ginkgo biloba is a genuine living relic, the last surviving member of a family of trees that covered much of the planet before flowering plants existed, all descended from populations that survived in a handful of sheltered valleys in southeast China while the species vanished everywhere else. This grouping's precise age is not documented, though its inclusion on Italy's national monumental register confirms it as long-established rather than a recent planting. The city chose this square specifically to launch a public tree-history project in 2018, scanning trees with QR codes to tell their stories, evidence that this ginkgo and its plane tree neighbour are treated locally as some of Verona's most significant living landmarks, official register or not.