Lucca once appeared "in the guise of a grove" in Sercambi's story because of the numerous stone towers built inside rather than the fronds of the elms and poplars that grew on the city walls. Here, as long as they were military buildings, the trees were used to reinforce the embankments and consolidate the structure.

 

The wall leaned against the three internal terraces and the promenade was just a walkway for the soldiers. The willows, poplars, elms, the same solid trees that grew spontaneously in the plain of Lucca, with strong roots and few pretensions grew here to consolidate the building. They were not meant to be used as gardens, however: access to the ramparts was forbidden to civilians, because they were a "military zone", guarded by armed guards who stayed in the "small barracks", above the ramparts, and in the "castles" above the gates.

In the 19th century, as their military function was dismissed, their natural destiny was to be transformed into a city park. Starting from an idea of Princess Elisa, however, it was only the Duchess Marie Louise of Bourbon who began the works of the "public promenade". The route starts from Piazza Napoleone, in front of the Ducal Palace. A circle of plane trees, and then towards the Caffè delle Mura, and other avenues of plane trees up to the roundabout of the carriages on the San Paolino bastion.
Since then, the ramparts that had hosted the parade grounds and soldiers were refined with romantic gardens and shady avenues and opened up to the strolling of the bourgeois. The existing trees were replaced with more elegant, fragrant and above all ordered rows of plane trees, holm oaks, lindens, on each curtain, alternating with exotic ginko biloba, cedars, camellias, tulip trees, araucarias, maples, horse chestnuts, from the New World and the Far East.

Almost all the trees of Lucca are here, on the city walls. Inside the walls, there are a few well-protected gardens, which you can sometimes only catch a glimpse of to see the wonders of nature. You can also experience the towers like the "hanging garden" of the Guinigi Tower, whose holm oaks, planted on the top, already signaled the tower from afar.
 

 

  Princess Elisa wanted to dedicate a large square to her brother Napoleon in front of her beautiful palace, at any cost. But there wasn't enough money and it was not possible to build the beautiful stone colonnade, as she desired. To cover not too elegant houses that overlooked it, she resorted to cheaper masts. First elms and then plane trees, which precisely symbolize charity. These trees with speckled bark and broad leaves (platys in Greek) are spread the most over the city and on the walls with almost 700 specimens, many of considerable size. The best preserved stretch is undoubtedly the one between the Santa Maria and San Paolino bastion, the first to begin the new life of the Lucca Walls.
 

 

 

The Santa Croce bastion is concentric: the bastion of the new walls was built around the old fifteenth-century tower in the sixteenth century. The curtain wall is stratified: under the old one there are white limestone walls, above the bricks of the new Renaissance walls. On the level of the bastion an orderly grove of field maple trees. "Domestic" trees in the countryside, but with sought-after wood, after the teaching of the luthier Stradivari, for the manufacture of violins.

 

  The beauty of linden trees is made of light green shades in spring and summer, in autumn the strong contrast of the intense yellow foliage against the black bark of the trunk and branches. The most common, on the city walls, is the black linden native to North America, hybridized with other native ones, resistant to pollution. Due to his longevity (it can live up to 1000 years) it is recommended in family crests as protector of families. On June nights, its the penetrating scent of flowers, on the San Martino bastion, accompanies a pleasant walk.

 

 On the curtain wall between the Salvatore bastion and San Pietro, you can walk in the shade of the red oaks that replace the original white poplars. The name of the tree suggests the best season to appreciate this walk, when the large leaves take on a beautiful intense red color, then fall to the ground with the round acorns. In its country of origin, North America, the red oak is considered a link between men and divinity.

 

  The escarpment, at this point, maintains a section similar to the original one with grass steps, reinforced by white poplars. The double color of the leaf of this tree symbolizes the binomial life and death, in the East the binomial yin yang: white with a silvery color of the lower part while the upper one has an intense green. It grows quickly, it provides wood that is not precious but appreciated for small works. In spring it produces an unbelievable amount of merry flying seeds hated by asthmatic people.

 

  The disheveled crown and small ever-moving leaves of the elm tree form a characteristic luminous shadow. These native trees typical of the plains are often wrapped up with vines, according to an agricultural custom that is no longer in use. Morpheus evokes prophetic dreams to those who fall asleep under these trees. In the Middle Ages, in its "wise" shadow, justice was administered and, perhaps it is a coincidence, but the "executioner's house" is located on this bastion until the abolition of the death penalty, on October 4th in 1847.

 

The long row of hackberry trees between the Salvatore and the Libertà bastions was interrupted in 1812 for the opening of the new Porta Elisa gate. Sober and elegant, with a majestic bearing, lead gray bark and dark elongated leaves, the seeds enclosed in black spherical berries, it grows also on poor soils, even rocky ones, in which it places its deep roots, deserving the popular name of rockbreaker. It is one of the great protagonists of the autumn foliage to which it contributes with variations of a bright yellow shades that cheer up even rainy autumn days.

 

 From Libya the first cedars arrived in Italy in 1800, much appreciated for their posture and for their perfumed bark, for their hard and incorruptible wood. For this reason it has become a very rare tree even in its country of origin. In 1822 Paolo Volpi wanted to plant one. He was the director of the Botanical garden of Lucca, and a cedar tree at the entrance seemed auspicious to him. Today it is the oldest plant in the arboretum and one of the largest in the province with its 5.76 m in diameter and 22 meters in height.

 

  Cesare Bicchi was the director of the Botanical Garden from 1860. Passionate about exotic plants, his garden was not big enough and he went to the nearby ramparts to plant the precious seedlings. Several conifers and some cedars, a catalpa tree, a pawlonia, many magnolias, some palms and a rare and now large American cypress.

 

 The fruits of the horse chestnut were used by the Turks to heal the horses'cough, hence the name. According to a popular belief, even humans can prevent autumn colds by carrying a fruit with them (without eating it, it is toxic!). From the Balkans it was introduced in Europe as an ornamental species, due to its elegant character, the foliage with an oriental design and beautiful inflorescences. On the city walls, there are two species with white flowers, on the curtain between the bastions of S. Regolo and S. Colombano, and with red flowers on the curtain that goes from the gate to the bastion of S. Donato.

 

 (Fagus selvatica L.) In the parade ground of the San Colombano bulwark, a particular microclimate has allowed the Red Beech to reach considerable dimensions and the majestic bearing of a great guardian. Protagonist of all seasons of the year, its unmistakable foliage welcomes passers-by who cross the sortie of the San Colombano bastion with different but always amazing luminosities, in every season.

 

 The tulip tree (from the Greek leiron), also called lily,  is striking for its large, lemon-green, delicately scented flowers that appear in spring. But even the foliage is  spectacular: with the change of seasons, it takes on different colors, turning from pale green to intense green, golden yellow and red before falling down like a multicolored carpet. Coming from North America in the 17th century, it is widespread in the Lucca area and naturalized in parks and gardens, where specimens of monumental dimensions grow.

 

 

  Like a plume, an everlasting banner, a heraldic insignia, a crown of holm oaks signals the Guinigi tower from afar. The holm oak is one of the symbolic species of the Mediterranean Maquis, widespread throughout the area, from the coast up to about 1000 meters in height in places with a milder climate. The oak was considered a sacred plant by Zeus, in the Christian tradition it offers its wood for the cross and sacrifices itself to fulfill the scriptures. On the Walls of Lucca it is widespread, in avenues in the curtain wall between the Libertà and the San Regolo bastions, in single specimens on the San Regolo bastion and with a beautiful group of holm oaks, it also marks the center of the San Donato bastion with the typical design of many gardens and parks of historic villas in Lucca and surroundings.