The Green Heart of the Apennines

Habit: A slender tree with a pyramidal crown, usually about 15 m tall, occasionally up to 25 m. Stem: Erect and sturdy. Bark: Smooth and grey-green at first, later fissured and corky. Branches: Young branches glabrous, sticky and covered with a whitish bloom. Leaves: Typically heart-shaped, ovate and acute, rather leathery, glossy green above and grey-green beneath, with a finely toothed-crenulate margin. Flowers: Arranged in monoecious inflorescences appearing before the leaves; male flowers in pendulous greenish catkins 9–11 cm long, female flowers in much shorter erect catkins with characteristic red stigmas. Fruits: A small cone-like, pedunculate infructescence that opens its woody scales at maturity to release narrowly winged achenes. Flowering: February–April.

Chorological type: Italo-Corsican endemic. Distribution in Italy: Originally restricted to the western southern Apennines, but now widespread in almost all Italian regions. Habitat: It prefers gullies and areas near watercourses on deep, moist soils, tolerating moderate climatic dryness better than other alders, from sea level up to 1300 m above sea level.

Generic name (Alnus): The Latin name for alder, perhaps derived from the Celtic al lan, meaning “near water”. Specific name (cordata): From the Latin cor, cordis, “heart”, in reference to the heart-shaped leaves.

Italian alder yields a reddish, compact and light wood, particularly resistant to decay when kept under water. It has been used in the paper industry, for plywood production and historically for non-hygroscopic packaging. The wood also provides a fairly good charcoal. In traditional medicine it has been credited with astringent, antirheumatic, febrifugal and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as a specific galactofuge action. Its glyceric macerate has been recommended for headaches and vertigo, while in the past the plant was also used to obtain natural dyes in shades of red, brown and green.

In Celtic tradition, alders were regarded as gateways between the world of the living and the afterlife, linked to healing rites and to the element of water. From an ecological perspective, it is also a key recolonizing species after fires or landslides, acting as a soil-improving plant thanks to its root symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria that enrich the ground.