The Liberty Park London Planetree

The biggest London plane in Utah stands north of the tennis courts in Liberty Park, and it is five metres round. The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands lists it as the state champion of its species and as a Heritage Tree, and its foresters measured it in 2025: a trunk 505 centimetres in circumference, a height of 30.5 metres, and a crown spreading about 26 metres, not far short of its own height. The park around it has a well-recorded history. The land belonged to Brigham Young from 1860, he is recorded planting trees on it, and Salt Lake City bought it from his estate in 1881. On 17 June 1882 the 80-acre parcel opened as Liberty Park. It is tempting to give the tree those dates, and nothing supports doing so: no source we have found says when this plane went in, or ties it to Young's planting or to the park's opening. It could be a nineteenth-century tree or a twentieth-century one that simply grew fast. What the record does give is the measurement, and it was taken last year, so the tree was standing then. London planes are the hybrid that lines streets from London to New York, with bark that flakes off in patches of grey, cream and olive, and this one is the largest of its kind that Utah has on its register. Nobody has dated it. If you know when it was planted, tell us.