174. Rose Garden Zelkova
A wonderful, memorable tree growing in central London.
In my opinion, the Rose Garden Zelkova is the most magnificent tree in any of central London’s parks. A rare specimen tree growing in a prime position towering over Hyde Park’s Rose Garden, it has a lovely, fluted trunk and a dense bundle of branches flying into the sky. It is one of the finest Caucasian zelkovas in England to boot.
Species details
Caucasian zelkova
Zelkova carpinifolia
Where to find it
Hyde Park Rose Garden, London SW1X 7NL
///waving.when.moral | 51.504245, -0.156152
Another Caucasian Zelkova
Trees in Unexpected Places
A couple of weeks ago, I took part in an online talk for the Tree Council (the organisation behind the fascinating Tree Talk Substack) with Harriet Rix, author of the excellent The Genius of Trees and Tree Council’s own Jon Stokes who was talking about his own new book, Trees of Britain and Ireland, a lavishly illustrated identification guide. If you missed it, fear not! It has been recorded!
Harriet started the session focusing on the ecology and distribution of the world’s extant Zelkova species. It was fascinating, I urge you to watch! Knowing that Harriet would be discussing this most charismatic of genera, I dug out a few of my own favourites, mostly Z. carpinifolia, all of which, like the Rose Garden Zelkova, can be seen in the public domain in England.
Gorgeous specimen, totally agree on it being the finest in central London. The fluted trunk texture on Zelkova carpinifolia is underrated, makes them so distincitve compared to similar elms. I actualy stumbled on this one by accident last year during a random Hyde Park walk and spent way too long just studying the bark and branch structure.
How beautiful, Paul!
And with the gorgeous colours of the flowers in the foreground this really lifted my heart this evening.
Thank you! 🌳