Making a monument of a black poplar is a bet against the species.
Black Poplar
Europe's native black poplar has been quietly bred out of its own landscape. This page maps every black poplar on the site, 5 so far across 5 cities.
Almost every poplar planted along a European road or river for the last two centuries has been a hybrid with an American species, so the wild form is now one of the continent's more threatened natives, and it is fast, soft and short lived on top of that. Very few reach the size of the four here. Bordeaux's has the biggest waistline in the city's entire register at 741 centimetres, three trunks fused near the ground, though its two official descriptions disagree about its height by twelve metres. Trento's made the city's monumental list in 2024 at 570 centimetres and carries no age anywhere. Venice's grows alone in a wood that took over a former military firing range on the Certosa. Setubal's pair stand beside the school named for the poet Bocage.
Rome
Venice
This poplar stands alone in the middle of what is effectively an accidental nature reserve.
Setubal
Two black poplars of twenty-five metres stand beside the Escola Secundaria du Bocage, which is named for Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, the poet born in this city in 1765.
Bordeaux
No tree in Bordeaux's remarkable-tree register has a bigger waistline than this one: 741 centimetres around, three trunks fused near the ground into something closer to sculpture than timber.
Trento
A black poplar with a trunk of 570 centimetres is a rarer thing than it sounds.
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