Trees of Paris

It's finally nice weather. My apartment is cold, inside thick stone walls, so when I went outside yesterday I dressed warmly as I had the day before. I almost melted coming home, and had to sidle along on the shady side of all the streets.

The lilacs and wisteria are in bloom all over Paris, and sometimes, as you walk along, you catch a wonderful fragrance and look up to see them on a balcony or behind a wall. The horse-chestnut trees that line the streets of Paris are blooming too, with high stalks of white flowers; but the sidewalks underneath are messy and slippery with smashed yellow buds that look disgusting.

Did you know Paris has more trees than any other capital city in Europe? Unfortunately too many of them are plane trees (platanes), the ones the French like to lop off unmercifully every year so they're flat on top. I've never understood why: it makes them look amputated and militaristic.

The platanes are in danger from a new disease called the colored canker (chancre coloré), which is progressing inexorably northward each year. I remember when the beautiful elm trees of North America started to die from Dutch elm disease, and then vanished. I hope it doesn't happen to the platanes. I think of them as southern trees, surrounding a shady square in the south of France on a blistering hot day, while you sip your cool drink on the terrace of a cafe near an old stone fountain.

My favorite tree in Paris (almost in Paris) is the majestic elephant-skinned beech tree that towers over the Pré-Catelan, in the Bois de Boulogne. It was planted before the French Revolution and is more than six meters around.

My other favorite trees in Paris (sort of) are the two huge cedars of Lebanon that you see near Roissy/ CDG airport. Someone told me they were planted by Napoleon. Supposedly he set two cedars each at the north, south, east, and west "gates" to Paris, but only the northern two remain. It is certainly true that the airport and highway north were designed around the cedars. Here is a different story about them. I don't know which is true.