Farnia

BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Deciduous, reaches considerable size in height up to 20/40 m and over 2 m in diameter, very long-lived species can exceed 500 years of life.

The stem is straight, sturdy, branched in the mid-high part, with ovate, very broad and irregular foliage, never too dense.

The bark in youth is smooth and grayish in color(10/20 years) then over the years it cracks longitudinally with regular and deep furrows that seem to form elongated rectangular plates and over time the color becomes dark brown.

The twigs are gray, smooth glabrescent and somewhat hairy.

Leaves are deciduous, large and 7/12cm. long at insertion, abovate type with a more expanded apex and narrower lamina at the insertion on the branch which occurs in an almost sessile manner (very short petiole), with two characteristic asymmetrical lobes called "auricles," the upper page green, the lower one paler and glabrous, with acorns with a long stalk (2/7cm. ) from which it got its name Quercus Peduncolata, are 2/40cm. long, brown in color with darker longitudinal streaks, with a well-soldered, rounded dome covered with scales for 1/4 of the fruits, ripen in the year in September-October and generally the fruits are solitary or gathered in groups of 2/4.

It is a mesophilous plant typical of the floodplain, in fact it prefers deep, moist soils, tolerates cold winters well, prefers open, well-lit exposures (heliophilous) and wide spaces between 0 and 800 meters above sea level. Farnia is a European oak, native to central and northern European countries. In italy it is absent in Calabria, Liguria, Sardinia. In Lazio it is very common, very common in most of the territory.

In nature it is found in symbiosis with Tuber Magnatum, but in truffle farming it is an excellent symbiont plant for Tuber Aestivum and Tuber Borchii.