The Oriental Planes of Square Michel-Foucault

Two oriental planes stand a few metres apart here, one measuring 470 centimetres around the trunk and the other 415. That is nearly nine metres of girth between them in a pocket garden of roughly 2,000 square metres, which is why they are listed here as one entry rather than two: you stand in a single spot and look up at both. Neither has a documented age. The city register records their girth and nothing more, no source gives a planting date, and large and old is as far as the evidence honestly goes. For scale, the thickest plane in Paris, in Parc Monceau, measures eight metres around and was planted in 1814, and the Parc Montsouris plane reaches 605 centimetres and dates from 1840. These two sit below those and above almost everything else in the city. The garden faces the College de France across Rue des Ecoles and takes its name from Michel Foucault, who lectured in the building opposite. It was renamed for him in 2005, long after these trunks were full grown. A bronze Dante by Jean-Paul Aube stands beneath them, and the two planes shade a steady traffic of students, visitors walking up to the Musee de Cluny and people eating lunch on the slope.