The Bednarski Park Larch

The slope this larch grows on was fenced, guarded and shut to the public for roughly half a century. Park Bednarskiego planted its western side as woodland between 1902 and 1909, named the section Zalesienie, and then kept people out of it with high fines for trespassing. It opened to walkers only in the 1950s, decades after the rest of the park was in daily use. The tree is also the only European larch on Krakow's list of natural monuments. The city recorded 223 centimetres of trunk when it protected the tree in February 2017, in the same council resolution that covered three of its neighbours in this park. Larch is the conifer that does not stay green. Soft needles in little bunches, fresh green in April, gold through late October, and by December nothing at all: a bare grey frame standing among evergreens that kept theirs. Almost nothing else in a European park does that, and it is the reason to come here in November rather than in July. No age is recorded for it anywhere, and the park's own planting history is not specific enough to supply one honestly. If you know this tree's story, we would like to hear it. The park closed for a full rebuild in 2022 and reopened in April 2023 with its old growth kept in place, so what you walk up to is the tree the register measured.