The Alpine Ash of the Botanic Gardens

One of the most photographed trees in Christchurch has a trunk that looks wrung out and left to dry. Locals call this Alpine Ash the twisted gum, and the name is exact: the trunk corkscrews and leans, then carries a crown to 34.5 metres. The measurements are enormous. The city's register gives the trunk as 11.66 metres round. The Australian Plants Society, citing material from the Friends of the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, reports 12.30 metres measured in 2016 and says the New Zealand Tree Register lists it as the largest of its species; some go further and call it a world record. Different years, different tapes, the same giant. When it went in is disputed. One account says around 1916, another around 1885. What is certain is that it already looked well established in a photograph printed in 1927 in a book by J.H. Simmonds, so it is at least a century old and possibly a good deal more. Its fame nearly cost it. By 2020 the crown had thinned, with dieback and sparse leaves, and the soil over its roots had been packed hard by admirers. The gardens answered with a layer of eucalyptus mulch over the root plate, bollards and chains to keep feet off it, and a raised viewing platform so people can still get close. The platform is the point: stand on it, not on the roots, and the tree gets to keep going.