The Botanical Garden Canary Palm

Poland's oldest palm tree lives indoors in Krakow, in a greenhouse used for concerts in summer. The city's own tourism pages give the title to this Canary Island date palm in the winter house of the Jagiellonian University's Botanical Garden. It has been a protected natural monument since December 2014, with a stem 172 centimetres round. That figure will not date it, and nothing else does either. Palms have no cambium and lay down no annual rings, and the trunk reaches close to its final thickness early and then goes up rather than out, so the tape measure that dates the oaks and limes on this page is no use at all here. Phoenix canariensis comes from the Canary Islands and would not last a Krakow February outdoors, which is the entire reason it is under glass. It is one of two trees on this page you visit with a roof over your head, the other being the cycad in the palm house nearby. Entry is ticketed and the glasshouses keep their own hours, which are worth checking before the walk out. Nobody publishes a planting year. The garden and the city both call it the oldest in the country and stop there. If you have seen a date on a label or in a garden catalogue, tell us and we will add it.