The Giant Thuja of Park Oliwski

Poland protects four trees on this spot as a single object. A western red cedar, two common yews and a Nootka cypress grow within a few metres of one another in the dendrological corner of Park Oliwski, and the register took all of them on 15 March 1992 under one number, 836, rather than four. The cedar is the one to stand in front of. Its trunk is 219 centimetres round and it carries 23 metres of dense, drooping, scale-leaved foliage; Gdansk's survey of its protected trees singles out the giant thujas of Park Oliwski as one of the collection's standouts, and this is the one that clears two metres of girth. Its neighbours in the record are smaller: the yews at 148 and 104 centimetres, the Nootka cypress at 143. Thuja plicata is not a European tree at all. It belongs to the wet Pacific coast of North America, from Alaska down to northern California, where on good ground it reaches heights and ages this specimen will never come near. Somebody brought it to a Baltic park and it took, which is most of what a dendrological collection was for. Nobody recorded when that happened. The register carries a girth, a height and a date of protection, and no birthday. If you have found a planting record for this corner of the park, tell us.