The Caucasian Elm of Avenue Foch

The grandest avenue in Paris keeps its most interesting tree off the main carriageway. Avenue Foch, 120 metres wide and lined with the most expensive apartments in the city, was laid out in the 1850s as the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, the ceremonial route from the Arc de Triomphe to the Bois de Boulogne. Its lower stretch served as a tree nursery, and a Caucasian elm planted there in 1852 simply never left. The species comes from the mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas and is rare in western Europe. This specimen is now 30 metres tall with a fluted, muscular trunk nearly four metres around, one of the finest of its kind in France. It has watched the avenue change from imperial parade ground to Belle Epoque promenade to the discreet fortress of embassies and old money it is today. The city has classified it among its officially remarkable trees.