The Purple Beech of Redpath Hall

At roughly 75 years old this is one of the youngest trees on this map, and the city still counts it among the largest purple beeches on Mont-Royal. That says as much about purple beeches here as it does about this one. It went in around the middle of the twentieth century, part of a mixed row planted along the terrace between the Redpath and McLennan library pavilions, and by the city's own description it matches its neighbours in size and shape. The one thing that separates it from the line is colour: dark purple foliage in a row of ordinary green. It sits on the axis facing Redpath Hall, finished in 1893 and one of the oldest buildings on the campus, which makes the building comfortably older than the tree looking at it. Generations of students have crossed that terrace between lectures without registering that the odd-coloured one in the row is on a heritage list. The survey measured it at 56 centimetres through the trunk, about 1.8 metres round, and called it around 60 years old when the work was done in 2011, which is where the 75 comes from. No other source names this tree, so both numbers rest on that single page. The black walnut at the Roddick Gates, the tulip tree by the Redpath Museum and the ginkgo further up are all a few minutes away.