Tuscany's Trees

These are four of my favorite ancient, inspiring, and most useful trees of Italy. We will meet many of these on the Herbal Tuscany 2027 journey next May and June. Register here before spaces sell out!

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

I grew up in Haw Creek, a suburb of Asheville North Carolina. It was named after the red haw fruits of the hawthorn tree, so I’ve long been familiar with its thorns and funky-shaped leaves. But I was not familiar with the Italian custom of trimming the shrubs into neat hedgerows, nicely forming boundaries that can run for miles between estates and along roadsides.

Known in Italy as the biancospino (white thorn) for its flowers (despite its red berries), the common hawthorn is a hardy and resilient deciduous shrub. Because of its astoundingly long, sharp thorns, it has a long association with boundaries and spring fertility as well as thorny protection and strength for those who need it. It is said that in ancient Rome, Roman mothers placed sprigs of hawthorn into their infants’ cradles to ward off evil spirits, though they must have hung them high out of reach! Today the plant makes a useful hedge and a metaphoric remedy for emotional strength.

Medicinally, the leaves and berries are used as a cardiotonic to support healthy blood pressure and vascular tissue function.

Cypress

Those iconic, sky-piercing trees lining the rolling hills of Tuscany are actually not native. They are, in fact, Italian Cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens) and are not a native tree to Italy. I was surprised to learn this since the tree is everywhere in Tuscany and it is such an iconic part of the landscape.

The Italian Cypress is native to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, spanning as far east as modern-day Iran. They were originally cultivated in ancient Persian gardens and were spread throughout the Mediterranean by the Greeks (who began to colonize the Italian peninsula after the Golden Age of Athens) and the Phoenicians.

It was actually the Etruscans (an ancient civilization that predated the Romans and left tantalizing hints of their culture in funerary marbles and caskets along with enormous water cisterns) who first introduced Cypresses to the region more than 2,000 years ago. During the Medieval and Renaissance periods, noblemen and monks planted them as boundaries, windbreaks, and aesthetic markers along country roads and villas.

People often confuse them with "cedars" (like the Pencil Cedar) because of their narrow shape and fragrant wood, but cypresses and true cedars belong to entirely different botanical families. Cypresses are identifiable by their tiny scale-like leaves and small, rounded, woody cones, whereas true cedars have needle clusters and large, barrel-shaped cones that disintegrate while still on the tree.

Lemon (Citrus limon)

A hallmark of the Italian coast, lemon trees are the star of Italy’s southern coasts, especially the Amalfi. In Tuscany, we don’t see them growing wild but they decorate many balconies and terraces in terra cotta pots. In fact, our 16^th-century villa during the Herbal Tuscany journey boasts a limonea, which I am told means that place to put away the lemons. It is a cool, below-ground cellar where the incredibly heavy pots are dragged during cold weather to live out the winter months until they can grace the garden again.

When in Italy, try the traditional Italian limoncello, a tart alcoholic drink that looks like sunshine.

Linden (Tilia)

The roads around Villa Certano are lined with cypresses and linden. They smell sweet and inviting, and they provide shade along the road and all over Tuscany and Umbria, guarding sidewalks to keep things cool. Known as tiglio in Italy, linden has collected a number of common names over the years: basswood, tilia, lime blossom, and linden, to name a few.

Across Italy, linden trees have served as beautiful arbor sentinels at historical sites, and we will see them lining the route into the walled city of Sansepolcro when we visit the herbal museum. A bee pollinator, the tree is also medicinal and is infused into water, honey, vinegar, or alcohol to create potent cardiovascular remedies that are especially hypotonic, lowering blood pressure, and easing anxiety. The leaves, twigs, bark and flowers are considered anxiolytic and nervine.

We explore tilia along with other nervine plants in the Herbs for the Brain accredited course, which teaches health practitioners how and why to integrate herbal medicine for brain and mental health.

The Herbal Tuscany 2027 journey begins May 29, for a week-and-a-half of wonderful sightseeing including botanical gardens, arboreta, hothouses, ancient farms, essential oils production facilities, and of course delicious regional food and wine, art, culture, architecture, and Medieval towns. Join us by registering here.

Join Herbal Tuscany 2027