A reader sent us this plane, and the photograph makes the case for it: a London plane at the edge of the great lawn of Parc Montsouris, its crown so full and even that it reads as a heart against the sky. The city's own tree inventory lists it on the Grande pelouse at 480 centimetres around the trunk and 25 metres tall. Paris has not classed it as remarkable, which is why no list of the park's famous trees mentions it. The park's classified plane, the one every guide names, stands about 190 metres to the east and is thicker, at 6.7 metres round. The two make an easy pair on one walk: the famous trunk first, then this one, which you see whole from the grass, roots to crown, with the lawn opening in front of it. Nobody has dated it. No record we have found says when it was planted, so we leave its age open. If you know, from a park plan, an old photograph or a plaque, tell us. Montsouris is also the park of Jacques Prevert's poem Le Jardin, about a kiss there one winter morning. The reader who found this tree sent us the poem along with it.
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.
Grande pelouse, Parc Montsouris, 2 Rue Gazan, 75014 ParisThe plane with the broad, rounded, heart-shaped crown at the edge of the Grande pelouse, the big central lawn, with shrubs behind it. The classified 6.7 metre plane is a different tree on the east side of the park.
Free, park open daily
Cite Universitaire (RER B), about 5 min walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
