Atop a small, rolling hill in Italy’s vast forests in Abruzzo, sits a big, stocky tree—the Pontone beech tree. This beech, however, is deceiving: It is not one but up to seven coexisting beech trees fused together through their bark, forming a broad, bulging base.

Its thick, tentacle-like branches reach nearly 70 feet into the sky; its dense network of roots weaves in and out of the soil, entangled with those of countless more young beeches that surround it.