The Sequoia of Buttes-Chaumont

A Californian giant grows on a former gypsum quarry in working class Paris. When Napoleon III opened the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in 1867, his engineers had just finished transforming a scarred industrial pit into a romantic landscape of cliffs, waterfalls and a temple on a crag. Among the plantings was a sequoia from the Sierra Nevada, a species that had only been described by Western botanists fifteen years earlier and was the horticultural sensation of the age. It is now the tallest tree in Paris at over 35 metres, with a trunk approaching five metres around. In its native range such a tree would be a juvenile; sequoias live for three thousand years, which means this one could still be standing when every building visible from the park has been replaced. The species name honours Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee writing system. The park's chief gardeners have called it the crown of their collection.