The Fluttering Elm near the Grosse Sternallee Bridge

This elm flowers in March, weeks before its own leaves, in small purple-brown tassels that dangle on threads and are easy to mistake for nothing at all. A white elm in flower looks faintly smoky against a pale sky, and most people crossing the bridge nearby will walk past without looking up. Ulmus laevis is at home in river meadows and on wet ground, and the Tiergarten, laid out on the low, damp land along the Spree, gives it what it likes. Old trees of the species can do something few European trees do: grow plank-like buttresses at the base of the trunk, the kind of thing you expect in a rainforest rather than a Berlin park. Whether this one has started, the register does not say. You will have to look. It is the second protected white elm in the Tiergarten on our map; the other stands east of the English Garden. A third registered elm, listed together with beeches, grows north-west of here near Tiergartenstrasse 30. Berlin knows this one as Naturdenkmal 1-92/B. No age, girth or height has been recorded. If you measure the trunk, or find buttresses at its foot, send us what you see.