The Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree

Agate shares its current favorite discovery. Today, let’s travel together to the slopes of Mount Etna in Italy to meet a remarkable natural giant: the Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree.

 

This extraordinary tree, considered the largest and oldest known chestnut in Europe, owes its name to a legend. It is said that Queen Joanna of Aragon and a hundred knights once found shelter beneath its vast branches during a fierce storm. These immense limbs, astonishing in their reach, all grow from a single trunk connected to a root that may be one or even two thousand years old.

Chestnut trees of Mount Etna, grafted (polyparabiosis) in ancient times. Illustration from the work "Studies on Grafting"  (Études sur la greffe, in French) 1927–1934), a five-volume collection of research by Lucien Daniel, professor of applied botany at the University of Rennes. This body of work focuses primarily on grafting and its applications, and is likely the most comprehensive publication on the subject from the early twentieth century.

On the same subject

  • Agate Takes the Holiday Road..
    A caravan of vehicles on the pastoral path of Séret for the mechanical milking demonstration. Séret mountain (Savoie). By Lucien Anchierri (photographer) - Year 1962.
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    Agate Takes the Holiday Road..

    Head for the mountains with our favorite photo of the moment, which takes us back to 1962 on the road to the Savoyard summits. A caravan of vehicles travels in single file along the Montagne de Séret pastoral path to watch a demonstration of mechanical milking on the mountain pasture. A summery nod to a time when tradition and modernity went hand in hand.

  • A bike bee
    A bike bee
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    A bike bee

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    New titles will soon join Agate's collections, books, images and magazines. One of them, C. Arnould's "Calendar of the Beekeeper" published in 1908, offers beautiful and humorous illustrations. Our favourite is this cycling bee, a mode of transport so fashionable at the beginning of the 20th century when this book was published.