THE TELEGRAPH: They provide shade to sunbathers on scorching hot days and a stunning backdrop to some of Europe's most fabled coastal scenery, but Italy's palm trees are being devastated by a voracious bug.
From Sicily in the south to the Italian Riviera in the north, tens of thousands of palm trees are dead or dying as a result of the insatiable appetite of an army of red palm weevils.
The relentless advance of the tiny beetle is threatening parks, gardens and seafronts in Italy's best known tourist destinations, from the World Heritage-listed Cinque Terre villages of Liguria to the beach resorts of Tuscany, Sardinia and the Adriatic.
Palms are not indigenous to Italy, but were introduced in the 18th and 19th centuries by wealthy collectors and aristocrats keen to give their estates an exotic look.
The threat posed by the weevil in Italy is acute, because one of the country's most popular palms is a species native to the Canary Islands, Phoenix canariensis, which is particularly susceptible to the insect.
"It is really a disaster, there are tens of thousands of palms which are dead or dying," said Valeria Francatti, an entomologist who is researching ways of combating the weevils. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Sunday, May 30, 2010
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