The Antakalnis Swiss Pine

Swiss pine belongs to the Alps and the Carpathians, a high-altitude species that grows where most trees give up. This one stands at street level in Antakalnis, three kilometres northeast of the centre of Vilnius. Pinus cembra carries edible seeds, and its foliage is denser and its needles longer than the Siberian pine it usually gets mistaken for. It is an odd thing to meet in Lithuania, and it did not arrive alone: two dwarf cultivars of the same species, Compacta Glauca and Pygmaea, grow beside it, which makes this corner somebody's deliberate collection rather than a chance seedling. The ground is the old Antakalnis manor park, laid out in the late 18th century. It is a small park, not the larger Antakalnio parkas further along the same street, and confusing the two is the easiest mistake to make here. The tree itself measures 15 metres tall and 1.86 metres round at chest height. Vilnius listed it as a protected nature heritage object on 29 May 1996 and it has held that status for thirty years. Its age is the one number nobody has written down. The park's date settles nothing about the pine, and no source gives a planting year. If you know when it went in, tell us.