The Sequoia of the Champs-Élysées Gardens

Europe had barely met this species when the tree went into the ground. Giant sequoias reached European gardens from California in the 1850s, and the fullest account of this one dates it to 1850, which would put it among the first ever planted in Paris. That is also why the city register lists it: the designation is for its age, not its size. At 19 metres it is a sapling next to the Californian originals, where General Sherman stands over 80 metres tall. The sources do not agree on the trunk. Paris measures it at 3.6 metres around; the independent account calls it a little over three metres in diameter, which is roughly three times thicker and is almost certainly circumference mislabelled. Take the register's figure. Age is loose in the same way, given as about 165 years around 2015 by one source and about 140 by a passing mention elsewhere, so somewhere between 165 and 180 years is as far as the evidence goes. It grows in the Jardins des Champs-Elysees, the ornamental gardens laid out below the avenue, a short walk from the allee Marcel Proust. It was already a mature tree for the 1900 Exposition Universelle and for every parade that has gone up the avenue since. Its southeast side, the one facing Place de la Concorde, has begun to show signs of weakness.