The Weeping Plane of Branféré

The branches of this plane sag until they touch the ground, root where they land and grow back upward, so the tree has built itself a set of arches to stand in. The heaviest limbs have needed metal crutches under them all the same. The crown now spans about 40 metres and shades something like 700 square metres, which is an orchard's worth of cover from one trunk. It is an oriental plane of the weeping form, put in during the 18th century and so roughly 300 years old, classified a remarkable tree by the French forestry office. The one figure worth a caveat is the trunk. The dendrologist who recorded it gives 4.50 metres circumference; a tourism account of visiting the tree calls 4.5 metres the diameter. A plane 4.5 metres thick would be extraordinary, 4.5 metres round is entirely ordinary at that age, and the circumference reading is the one taken here. The tree stands inside the Parc animalier et botanique de Branfere, a zoo and botanical garden at Le Guerno, so a ticket and the park's opening hours sit between a visitor and the trunk. People go for it specifically regardless: the local tourist office publishes a piece that is simply somebody's account of setting out to find it. Photographs taken in August 2023 show it standing and in full leaf.