The Three-Trunked Katsura of Park Oliwski

In October this tree smells of caramel. Katsura leaves give off a scent as they yellow and fall, variously described as burnt sugar, toffee or gingerbread, strong enough on a still afternoon that people look around for a bakery. It is one of the few trees you can find with your nose. The rest of the year it is worth finding for its shape. A single katsura here has split into three trunks low down, measuring 168, 189 and 158 centimetres round, and carried all three to 25 metres. Poland registered it as a natural monument on 15 March 1992 under number 838, describing it in Polish as grujecznik japonski trojpienny: the three-trunked Japanese katsura. The register is not usually that literal, and in this case the description is all the recognition anybody needs. There is a ceiling on how old it can be. Cercidiphyllum japonicum was unknown to Western collections until after 1865, so no katsura anywhere in Europe is much more than a century and a half old, whatever the trunks suggest. Nobody has dated this one and the register carries girths rather than birthdays. The smell, at least, arrives on schedule.