Last summer, when my husband and I started planning a trip to Italy for the beginning of October, I knew that there were certain iconic landmarks that we’d want to see. For me, with six years of Latin and accompanying Roman history under my belt, I knew that I wanted to tour the Colosseum and the Forum. And though Charlie had already been to Italy many times, I knew he wanted to visit the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s again.

As a lifelong lover of trees, though, there was a specific mission I had in mind: I wanted to see a particular kind of pine tree that Pliny the Younger used to describe the plume of smoke and ash that he saw rising from Mount Vesuvius on the day of that fateful event in A.D. 79 that obliterated the major towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum along with all the other habitations in the area.