The White Poplar of Park Zaslawa Malickiego

Nearly five metres round, in a park with a playground and a pond. The white poplar at the southern end of Park im. Zaslawa Malickiego measures 498 centimetres at the trunk and runs 32 metres up, and it was made a natural monument on 30 December 1987, a quarter of a century before either of the two protected trees standing with it here. Those three are what makes this corner of Rakowiec worth the walk: a wych elm and a silver maple within about 150 metres of the poplar, three separate designations inside one ordinary neighbourhood park. Nothing about the place announces itself. Benches, a sports field, the local cultural centre, summer events for the people in the blocks around it, and then a tree the width of a small room. The poplar is the easiest of the three to name from across the grass. The undersides of white poplar leaves are felted white, so the whole crown turns and flickers silver whenever wind crosses the park, and the bark stays pale, marked with dark diamond shapes rather than furrowing the way the elm's does. Nobody has dated it. The register records the size and the protection and stops there, so if you have seen a planting record for this park, tell us.