The Oriental Plane of Parc d'Egmont

Seventy metres separate this tree from its own hybrid offspring. The oriental plane is one of the two parents of the London plane, and both grow in Parc d'Egmont within sight of each other, the parent 2.72 metres round and the descendant 3.67, which is roughly how that cross behaves everywhere: faster, tougher, thicker than the tree it came from. Platanus orientalis is the plane of the eastern Mediterranean, the tree of Greek market squares and Persian gardens, the species Hippocrates is said to have taught under on Kos and the one Xerxes reportedly stopped his army to hang with gold. It differs from its descendant in the leaf, cut far more deeply into narrow lobes, and in temperament: it wants water and warmth, and grows slowly when it does not get them. This one stands twenty two metres with a crown twelve metres across, and the park's own information panel names it, which most of the 582 trees on the region's legal inventory never get. Brussels ranks it twenty first of its species. The regional champion is a kilometre and a half east in Parc Leopold, the thickest oriental plane recorded anywhere in the city, which is a fair reason to walk between the two.