The Glasnevin Hybrid Strawberry Tree

The bark peels away by itself here, in curling chestnut strips that show a glossy copper red layer underneath. Arbutus x andrachnoides is a naturally occurring hybrid from the Mediterranean, a cross between the familiar strawberry tree and the smooth-barked Arbutus andrachne of Greece and Cyprus, and it takes after the more dramatic parent: a colour show that has nothing to do with flowers or leaves. The Tree Council of Ireland's 2009 heritage survey lists a specimen of this hybrid among the National Botanic Gardens' Exceptional Specimen Trees, aged 100 to 150 years then, roughly 120 to 165 now. Trees and Shrubs Online photographed the same hybrid at Glasnevin in 2017; whether that is the register's tree or a second planting nearby, its pages do not say. It is at its most vivid in late summer, when the old layer has started to curl away on its own and the fresh copper underneath is at its brightest.