The Black Poplar of Chante-Grillon

No tree in Bordeaux's remarkable-tree register has a bigger waistline than this one: 741 centimetres around, three trunks fused near the ground into something closer to sculpture than timber. It is one of only seven trees in the city carrying the A.R.B.R.E.S. label Arbre Remarquable de France, awarded in 2012, and it holds that title in a small municipal garden on the right bank rather than in one of Bordeaux's grand parks. The two official descriptions do not agree on its dimensions. The metropole's tree register records 19 metres of height and a trunk diameter of 236 centimetres. The city's own magazine calls it the record-holder of the garden at 31 metres, with a main trunk of 320 centimetres. Both are published figures, and the gap probably comes down to where the tape went around that fused base. Neither source gives an age at all. Black poplar is a riverside species and this is a riverside city. It grows fast, splits easily in storms and rarely survives to this size in a park, which is most of the reason the register puts it at the top of its own list. Bark and leaves from the species were once boiled up in French folk medicine against rheumatism. The tree is also classified under the city's urban plan, so the ground around it cannot be built on. Go and look at the base. That is where the whole story is.