Forestry

The eighth entry is l’albero candidato, the tree picked out to be given room and light until the end of the rotation, and the adjective it carries has come a long way to end up in a wood. Behind it is Latin candidatus, which meant whitened, and behind that candidus, white and shining, from candere, to glow. A Roman who stood for office went about in a toga rubbed with chalk so that he could be told apart in a crowd at a distance, and it was the cloth, not anything he promised, that gave him his name. English keeps the root in three other places and hides it well: « candour » and « candid » are that whiteness turned into plain speaking, « incandescent » is the glowing itself, and « a candle » is candela, the thing made to give light. So the forester’s term is exact, and older than it looks. L’albero candidato is not a tree that has applied for anything: it is the one marked out to be seen, left standing in its own light while the rest are taken away.