The New York Times: Admiring the trees of Paris

Aug. 9, 2023

As a Paris resident, I scarcely paid attention to the city’s tree-scape until a few years ago, when I stumbled upon an arresting scene of a young man stretched out in the elbow of a low-lying branch of a Japanese pagoda tree, its leaves skimming the pond at Buttes-Chaumont Park in the 19th arrondissement.

From that moment, I came to understand that the city’s trees — from the dramatic weeping willows and their trailing fronds along the Seine to the military rows of London plane trees that line the Champs-Élysées — play an underappreciated supporting role in Paris’s inimitable elegance and grandeur.

It was a belated epiphany, and one that is somewhat understandable: Urban trees can be overlooked, particularly in Paris, where dozens of stately landmarks command the attention of locals and visitors alike.

But public and political awareness of the city’s trees has renewed recently, not only as natural, free-standing monuments equal in importance to the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower, but also as key assets in the fight against climate change. City lawmakers, arborists and others in Paris are investing in the tree-scape by planning new urban forests, increasing the number of protected historical trees and designing walking tours — because trees can also offer a fresh, green-minded perspective of the City of Light.

More at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/travel/paris-trees.html