The Hejnowicz Plane

Before Poznan gave these four planes legal protection, it listened to them. The city's climate and environment department commissioned a dendrological survey that included acoustic tomography, sound pushed through the trunk to map solid wood from rot, and all four came back in good to very good condition with a low risk of dropping limbs. On 16 May 2023 the council made them pomniki przyrody, natural monuments, at the request of the Stare Miasto district council, and gave each one a name instead of a number. This is the Hejnowicz Plane, for Professor Alina Hejnowicz. It stands at the eastern end of the group, roughly thirty metres from its nearest neighbour, and belongs to a set measured at between twenty and twenty-three and a half metres tall. They went into the ground at the start of the twentieth century, which puts their planting close to the moment the square itself changed identity: Prussian Wilhelmsplatz until 1918, Plac Wolnosci, Freedom Square, ever since. Neither the national register nor the city's announcement gives a girth for any of the four, so none is published here. The register entry was formalised on 9 June 2023, three weeks after the vote.