Japanese Pagoda Tree · 140 years
The National Park Service dates two trees in Farragut Square to before 1886: a ginkgo and a sophora. The ginkgo was cut down by mistake in 2013. The sophora, a Japanese pagoda tree, is the one the Park Service recorded on the square's east side, two minutes on foot from two Metro stations.
That date makes it at least about 140 years old, and it is a floor, not a birthday. Nobody recorded when this tree was planted. The square itself was laid out over the decades before 1886, which tells you about the square and nothing certain about the tree.
Its survey record, DC-5 in the Park Service's witness tree program, calls it a character defining feature of Farragut Square and ties it to the square's change from an undeveloped tract into a small urban park, Washington's first memorial to a naval hero. The trunk measured 49.5 inches across at chest height, close to four metres round.
That record dates from 2018. The newest account of the square's trees, from Casey Trees in December 2024, counts 26 of them there and tells the story of the lost ginkgo, but does not mention this one. We have no dated photograph of it since, so if you walk through and find it standing, tell us.
Japanese pagoda trees flower late, in August, with cream flowers at a time when almost nothing else in a city is in bloom.