Most of New York's elms are gone.
Ancient Trees in Central Park
Central Park's oldest tree is probably the black tupelo in the Ramble, at about 168 years.
Probably, because a multi-trunked London plane near the Reservoir may date to 1862, when the Reservoir itself was dug, and neither tree comes with proof: the tupelo has the better paperwork, the plane has more trunks than any ageing rule of thumb can handle, and they disagree by only four years. That the contest is this close says something about the ground. The park opened in 1858 on swamp, rock and scattered farms with no old trees at all, so everything standing today was planted, and its oldest survivors are a record of what the park's own gardeners chose rather than what nature left behind. Two of the seven trees here are American elms from the Mall's Literary Walk, one of the last major stands of the species anywhere after Dutch elm disease took most of the country's street elms from the 1930s on. A third elm, gnarled and wide-canopied at the East 97th Street entrance, is old enough that nobody wrote down its planting year. Between them stand a small grove of Lebanon cedars planted for a family's grandchildren, and 35 Yoshino cherries whose planting predates the more famous gift Washington received the same year, 1912. All free, every day, dawn to dusk.
All 7 stand in New York, which maps 20 remarkable trees in total.
Central Park once had roughly 500 American elms along its western edge.
Two American elms grow straight out of exposed bedrock east of Central Park's Mall, their roots spread flat across the rock like something poured rather than planted.
A tree with more than one trunk is hard to age by the usual rule of thumb, and that uncertainty is most of this one's story.
Everyone knows Washington's cherry trees came from Japan in 1912.
Central Park's most photographed avenue of trees is not the original one.
Central Park's own Conservancy calls this a single cedar of Lebanon.
Opening times and visitor information: Central Park.
More parks worth the walk: every park we map. Or explore by city: Pamplona · Oahu · Brussels · Lisbon · Amsterdam · Barcelona