The Pin de Bunge, or Pin de Napoléon

This pine's bark peels in patches of grey, green and cream as it ages, a trait so distinctive that the species barely needs its Latin name to identify it. Pinus bungeana is native to central China, first documented for Western science by the Russian botanist Alexander von Bunge in 1831 at a temple garden in Beijing, and this specimen was probably planted in 1856, the year construction began on the Parc de la Tête d'Or itself, making it one of the park's original plantings rather than a later addition. The International Dendrology Society's own reference site names it directly as the oldest cultivated Pinus bungeana in Europe, calling it a national treasure of the Lyon botanical garden, a specific claim rather than a vague superlative, and one this project treats as credible given the source. Locally it carries the nickname Pin de Napoléon, though no source connects the name to any specific historical event rather than general period association, so that link is not claimed here as fact. Nearly 170 years on, its trunk has developed the pale, almost white patchwork bark that only develops with real age, the single feature that makes this pine worth seeking out among the arboretum's thousands of other specimens.