The Cedar of the Grande Cascade

The Grande Cascade is a waterfall built by hand, artificial rock and all, part of the Bois de Boulogne that Napoleon III had remade as a landscape park. The cedar beside it was planted in 1862, and it is now about 160 years old. The city describes it as a cedar of Lebanon roughly 25 metres tall, standing beside the cascade near the Longchamp crossroads car park, and its register label and fact sheet say the same. One field in the city's open inventory files it as an Atlas cedar instead. The two are close relatives and often confused, so we name it as the city names it and leave the last word to someone who has stood under it and looked at the cones. The trunk measures 488 centimetres round in the register and 468 on the sheet. The neighbours are worth knowing. A bald cypress of 28 metres grows nearby, a swamp tree from the American south that has taken to a Paris wood. There is also a restaurant next to the cascade with grounds of its own, and the cedar is described as standing by the cascade rather than inside them. Nobody has yet confirmed the exact spot, so the pin is approximate, and if you find the tree a photograph and your position would settle it. The cascade itself has been reported closed. The woodland around it is open and free, and the racecourse at Longchamp is just across the road.