The London Plane of Landbohojskolens Have

The zelkova a few hundred metres away measures more, but that figure counts four stems grown together. This is one trunk, 6.71 metres round, the thickest single trunk the register records in Landbohøjskolens Have, and it carries a crown 25.7 metres up behind the old auditorium VII. The garden was inaugurated in 1858 for the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural College, and the university's own history of the place says plainly that trees planted then are still standing, more than 150 years on. It names zelkovas, a golden weeping ash, collections of ash and chestnut. It does not name this plane, so the tree itself rests on the register, which checked its position in 2011 and recorded it healthy and single-stemmed. Platanus x acerifolia is a hybrid of the oriental plane and the American one, and it became the standard street tree of industrial Europe because it tolerates polluted air and shrugs off root compaction. Most of the ones you meet are pollarded to a fist of knuckles. This one was left to grow, a plane allowed to become what it wanted to become, which is why it is worth the walk. The garden is free and open, ten minutes on foot from Fasanvej metro.