In 1785, four years before the Revolution, the naturalist Buffon planted three oriental planes in the garden he had run for half a century. This is the survivor. Buffon was then the most famous scientist in Europe, author of a 36 volume natural history that scandalized the Church by suggesting the Earth was far older than Genesis allowed. He died in 1788 and missed the Terror by five years; his son went to the guillotine. The tree his gardeners set in the ground kept growing through all of it. Oriental planes were admired in antiquity, and the Romans planted them across their empire for shade. This one received the national Remarkable Tree label in 2001. It stands near the garden's plane alley, wide trunked and mottled, old enough that the institution around it has changed its name three times while the tree kept its place. Its two siblings from the 1785 planting are gone, which makes the survivor the last living tree Buffon is known to have planted.
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Jardin des Plantes, 36 Rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, 75005 ParisYou can recognise it by the wide, mottled trunk of an oriental plane carrying the national Remarkable Tree label. It stands by the plane alley in the Jardin des Plantes, near the Rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire gate.
Free, Jardin des Plantes open daily
Gare d'Austerlitz (Metro 5/10, RER C), 4 min walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
