The Glasnevin Hybrid Strawberry Tree

Peel back the bark on this tree and you find a second colour underneath. Arbutus x andrachnoides is a naturally occurring hybrid from the Mediterranean, a cross between the familiar strawberry tree and the smooth-barked Greek and Cypriot Arbutus andrachne, and it inherits the more dramatic parent's habit: chestnut brown outer bark that peels away in curling strips to reveal a glossy, copper red layer beneath, 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. A dendrology reference, Trees and Shrubs Online, independently photographed a specimen of the same species at Glasnevin in 2017, evidence the hybrid grows and was recently alive in these gardens, though it cannot be fully confirmed that the photographed tree and the register's tree are one and the same rather than two separate plantings nearby. Treat the connection as likely, not certain. Either way, this is the weaker-evidenced tree in this corner of the gardens, worth visiting for the bark alone: run a hand along the trunk in late summer, after the old layer has started to curl, and the colour underneath is the reason to stop.