It is located on the slopes of the Sicilian volcano, a previous estimate indicated its age in 3-4 thousand years. Now a study on his DNA has established a more precise date
When the first gem emerged from the ground it was the period of the Battle of Zama (202 BC) which ended the second Punic war. Il Chestnut of the Hundred Horsesin the Municipality of Sant’Alfio on the slopes ofEtna in the province of Catania, of that period. According to a new and more precise dating based on its DNA, the oldest tree in Italy is 2,200 years old, less than the 3-4 thousand of a previous estimate.
Measures
The study was carried out by Crea (Council for research in agriculture) and published on Forestry, international journal of forestry research. The Castagno dei Cento Cavalli has an average diameter of 18 meters (almost 58 considering i three trunks into which divided), 22 meters high and its foliage covers an area of about one thousand square meters. For some time it was sought to be sure that the three trunks had really originated by fragmentation from a single stem. Now the study, coordinated by Angelina Nunziata, confirms the genetic uniformity of the trunks thanks to an innovative technique of analyzing the DNA extracted from the leaves called Kasp and optimized by Crea in its Caserta headquarters of the Center for olive growing, fruit growing and citrus growing. The result excludes the hypothesis that the three main trunks were born from sister chestnuts and supports the idea that they were instead originated from the radial fragmentation of the same plant.
The legend
Legend has it that its name was born when the Queen Joan I of Angi in the thirteenth century took shelter under its foliage from a storm with all one hundred of her knights. The tree was also visited by Goethe and by many other writers and artists, painted by Jean-Pierre Houel who made him enter the Grand Tour of European travelers. The chestnut tree has been a national monument since 1965 and in 2008 it was declared a messenger of peace monument by Unesco.
August 3, 2022 (change August 3, 2022 | 12:53)
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