The Hackberry of Place Saint-Georges

The small dark berries on this tree are edible, and they taste faintly of dates. Mediterranean hackberry has been the standard tree of squares across southern France and Spain for centuries, partly for the fruit and mostly for the shade: deep-rooted, drought-hardy, indifferent to paving and heat, carrying a dense rounded crown on a trunk that stays smooth and grey for decades, closer to a beech than to an oak. This one holds Place Saint-Georges, a few minutes' walk from the Capitole, and it is on Toulouse's own list of remarkable trees. Be clear about what that list says. It records the species and the position, gives no age and no measurements, and files the tree at the adult development stage rather than the oldest category it uses, so this is a mature specimen and not an ancient one, listed for what it does to the square rather than for its years. That is a reasonable case to make in a city built almost entirely of brick, which takes in the day's heat and hands it back all evening. Toulouse's squares live or die on their canopies, and the species that copes best in them is the one that came from a hotter climate to begin with. The berries ripen dark in autumn and the birds usually get there first.