It is an easy march of eight hours or less, through pleasing scenery and
by a good track, from Longobucco to San Giovanni in Fiore, the capital
of the Sila. The path leaves Longobucco at the rear of the town and,
climbing upward, enters a valley which it follows to its head. The
peasants have cultivated patches of ground along the stream; the slopes
are covered, first with chestnuts and then with hoary firs - a rare
growth, in these parts - from whose branches hangs the golden bough of
the mistletoe. And now the stream is ended and a dark ridge blocks the
way; it is overgrown with beeches, under whose shade you ascend in steep
curves. At the summit the vegetation changes once more, and you find
yourself among magnificent stretches of pines that continue as far as
the governmental domain of Galoppano, a forestal station, two hours'
walk from Longobucco.
This pine is a particular variety (Pinus lancio, var. Calabra),
known as the "Pino della Sila" - it is found over this whole country,
and grows to a height of forty metres with a silvery-grey trunk,
exhaling a delicious aromatic fragrance. In youth, especially where the
soil is deep, it shoots up prim and demure as a Nuremberg toy; but in
old age grows monstrous. High-perched upon some lonely granite boulder,
with roots writhing over the bare stone like the arms of an octopus, it
sits firm and unmoved, deriding the tempest and flinging fantastic limbs
into the air - emblem of tenacity in desolation.
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