DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Good morning. I'm David Greene. It's a lonely tree. It's perched on some rocks. It becomes surrounded by water when the river floods. Legend has it, a devil would sit under it at night playing violin, warding off intruders. Dubbed the Guardian of the Flooded Village, the Scots pine in the Czech Republic has been selected as the 2020 European Tree of the Year. The competition included a Croatian ginkgo and a Portuguese chestnut. It is unclear if a devil still rests beneath its pines. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.