The Krowoderska Lime

Four of the ages on this walk come off a tape measure rather than out of any record, and this is the only one where the arithmetic gets to use the tree's own species. The published growth factor for small-leaved lime is an exact match for what stands at ul. Krowoderska 16: a trunk 402 centimetres round, which converts to about 128 centimetres of diameter and returns roughly 150 years. Even then the honest form is a range, 130 to 175, because a growth factor describes an average lime rather than this one, and this one has spent its whole life in a street. Poles have a longer relationship with the species than most. Lipa is the Polish name for it, and lipiec, the word for July, comes from the same root, because July is when the lime flowers and the tree fills with bees loud enough to hear from the pavement. Villages planted them at churches and crossroads for centuries. This one has been protected since 1987 and is a city tree by contrast, on a working street north of the Old Town rather than in the park ring. It marks the far end of the Planty loop, about 1.2 kilometres from the ash on ul. Straszewskiego at the other extreme.