The Hundred-Horse Chestnut , 1882

The Hundred-Horse Chestnut, the largest and oldest known chestnut tree in the world possibly bettween 2,000 to 4,000 years old, found in Sant'Alfio, on the eastern slope of Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy. A sweet chestnut, it is listed in the Guinness World Records as the"Greatest Tree Girth Ever", with a circumference of 57.9 m (190 ft) when it was measured in 1780. Above ground, the tree has since split into multiple large trunks, but below ground, these trunks still share the same roots. According to legend a queen of Aragon and her company of 100 knights, during a trip to Mount Etna, were caught in a severe thunderstorm and the entire company is said to have sheltered under the tree. From The Universe or, The Infinitely Great and the Infinitely Little, published 1882. Sicily