The Common Three Pines

The building came second. When National Taiwan University put up its Common Teaching Building, the floor plan was recessed to leave these three Ryukyu pines standing where they already were, and the campus later laid an elevated wooden deck around their feet so people could sit under them without treading the roots flat. Nobody has cored them. An estimate published around 2010 put the trio at roughly eighty years old, which lands them a little short of a century now, and that is arithmetic on an estimate rather than a measurement. Two of the three carry their own numbers on Taipei's protected tree register, 10615-00047 and 10615-00048, according to the account that lists them. On campus they are the Common Three Pines, and in a 2005 student poll they were voted one of the twelve scenic spots of the university. That is an odd honour for three conifers on a teaching plaza, and it says something about how many people have sat under them. They still do. The food carts are close, the deck is shaded, and these trees are the reason anyone stops at that particular corner of Zhoushan Road rather than walking on. The pin comes off the building rather than off the trunks, so aim for the plaza in front of the Common Teaching Building; three tall pines on a wooden platform are hard to mistake for anything else.