a man stands next to a brick pillar that holds up the arm of a giant oak tree

See the beautiful, ecologically priceless trees Italy is protecting forever

Dotted across Italy, 22,000 ancient trees have gained federal protection, making them cornerstones of cultural history.

Pillars prop up the huge branches of the ancient oak tree on the property of Villa Falconieri. The villa was built in 1500 and then overhauled in the first half of 1600. Between these two dates the young oak was planted.

Atop a small, rolling hill in Italy’s vast forests in Abruzzo, sits a big, stocky tree—the Pontone beech tree. This beech, however, is deceiving: It is not one but up to seven coexisting beech trees fused together through their bark, forming a broad, bulging base. Its thick, tentacle-like branches reach nearly 70 feet into the sky; its dense network of roots weaves in and out of the soil, entangled with those of countless more young beeches that surround it.

“This is the ‘mother beech tree’,” says Romano Visci, a ranger for the National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. “It provides the seeds for other beech trees to grow.”

For centuries, beech trees in this part of the forest have

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