The Oriental Plane of Domaine de Penthes

Geneva has plane trees along half its streets and almost none of the tree they came from. The London plane that lines European cities is a hybrid, and this is the parent that gave it its name and most of its looks: Platanus orientalis, which the city's arborist calls a rare specimen on Genevan soil. It is also the tree the Tribune de Genève picked to open its walking tour of the canton's remarkable trees, which tells you where the professionals would start. It stands in the garden of the Château de Penthes above the lake, 5.59 metres around and 20 metres tall, carrying a crown 25 metres wide. The canton's inventory rates its vitality excellent, which is not a given at that size. An arborist puts it at around 120 years and thinks the château's owners planted it, but that is his estimate rather than a record, he gave it in 2020, and no document naming the planting has turned up. The grounds are nine hectares, free to walk, and kept by the gardeners of the city's botanical garden. The museum inside the château closed in 2022 when its foundation went bankrupt, and the garden simply carried on without it. Elsewhere on the lawn stands the stump of a giant sequoia that lightning finished in 1993, another of the estate's imported trophies. The plane has had better luck.