The Independence Spruce

This spruce is exactly as old as the country it stands in. Consul General Rudolf Ray sowed the seed on 6 December 1917, the day the Finnish Parliament accepted the declaration of independence, and then raised the seedling privately for the next thirteen years. After he died in 1930 it was lifted, moved to Kaivopuisto and formally presented to Parliament on 13 May 1931 with full ceremony. A granite stone at its roots carries an alternative design for the national coat of arms, drawn by Ray himself. Twenty-seven years in, the war reached it. The bombing raids on Helsinki in February 1944 sent shrapnel into the trunk and broke the crown clean off. The tree regrew, slowly enough that by the early 1960s the city's foresters were expecting to lose it to stunted growth. They did not. It stands north of the Kaivohuone restaurant on Iso Puistotie, in a park that walks past it all summer without looking up. What it does not have is a measurement. No girth, no height, nothing published, which is an odd gap for a tree with a memorial stone and a parliamentary dedication. If you go with a tape measure, tell us what you get.