The First Plane of Hallerwiese

The London plane is not much older than this tree. The hybrid turned up in European gardens some time in the seventeenth century, a cross between an American and an Oriental plane that nobody set out to make, and Nuremberg's survey of its oldest trees puts this one and its neighbour at over three hundred years, which places the pair within a couple of generations of the hybrid's own beginning. Both stand on the green behind the old gnarled lime, planted at close to the same moment, and both carry their own entry on the city's 2020 natural monument ordinance, this one as ND-4. The register lists them separately. The newspaper survey describes them as a pair and does not tell them apart, which is why this page does not pretend to either. What is not in question is the size. Planes put on girth faster than limes and then hold it, and three centuries on the Hallerwiese have given these two the heavy trunks that make the species recognisable from the far end of a park, bark flaking off in jigsaw plates to leave a camouflage of cream, olive and grey underneath. It is the one large tree that looks different every year in the same way. Free and open, about fifteen minutes on foot from the Hauptmarkt.