The Honey Locust of Fałata

Honey locust grows thorns on its own trunk, branched like antlers and up to the length of a hand. Gleditsia triacanthos comes from the central United States, where those spines kept large animals off the bark, and it reached European streets as a tough city tree that puts up with drought, salt and bad soil. Many planted in cities are thornless selections, so do not count on finding spines on this one. Warsaw made it a protected natural monument on 9 November 2022, one of the newest entries in the city's register. It is 18 metres tall and its trunk is 260 centimetres round. The record then repeats that same figure of 260 as the trunk's diameter, which cannot be right, since a circumference of 260 centimetres gives a diameter near 83. We have kept the girth and left the other number where we found it, and with one measurement in doubt we have not turned either into an age. The name is about the pods. They hang long, dark and twisted, and the pulp inside is sweet enough that livestock ate it where the tree comes from. On ul. Falata in Mokotow they mostly litter the pavement in autumn, along with leaflets that turn a clean yellow before they drop. Whether you can reach the trunk or only see it, we have not confirmed.