The Grinava Poplar

A black poplar this size usually means centuries of growth, but the Grinava Poplar is probably closer to a hundred years old, and it was protected in 2007 for its bulk rather than its age. The trunk measures seven metres and five centimetres round, one of the largest black poplars recorded in Slovakia, with a crown spreading nineteen metres and a height put at around forty metres, though one record makes it a touch shorter. It stands on open ground beside Limbasska cesta on the edge of Grinava, a district of Pezinok, near the site of the old Strapak's Mill, with no fence or gate between the road and the trunk. A Wiki Loves Earth photograph taken in July 2023 shows it still standing, still in full leaf. Black poplar is the wild ancestor behind Europe's ornamental poplars, and it has become genuinely rare in the wild as it interbreeds with planted hybrids, which is what makes a pure specimen this size worth a protection order on its own. Grinava sits on the Bratislava to Zilina railway, and the stop that once carried the district's own name comes before Pezinok's main station, comfortably inside a half hour of the capital: an easy addition to a Bratislava day rather than a trip of its own.