Poland's Oldest Black Locust

Black locusts are not supposed to be rare in Poland. The species arrived from North America in the 18th century and spread so successfully across Central Europe's sandy soils that it now grows practically everywhere, valued for holding loose ground rather than for looking distinguished. Which is what makes the specimen standing in front of Collegium Sniadeckiego, on the Kopernika Street side of the Jagiellonian University's Botanical Garden, worth singling out: at 239 years old by a 2022 measurement, with a trunk 475cm around and a height of 27 metres, it is the oldest confirmed black locust anywhere in Poland. Its age lines up almost exactly with the garden's own founding in 1783, meaning whoever first planted it did so within a few years of the garden's earliest plantings, one of the collection's original survivors rather than a later addition. May brings the reward for anyone who times a visit right: a black locust in full bloom carries heavy clusters of white flowers that draw bees from across the garden, the same nectar that makes the species one of Europe's most productive honey trees. It shares this stretch of path with a run of other exceptionally old specimens dating to the same founding decades, giving one corner of the garden a disproportionate share of Poland's oldest confirmed trees.