London Mystery TreeTree

[FreeFallin]

Visiting London this summer, I walked past this tree each day, it was in a corner of a garden on the Regents College campus in east London. It looked very old and could be a transplant from anywhere in the world. The base was sprawling with no real stem up the middle, the inside was a cavern with the 50 or so larger branches, and the only foliage was on the outside. Here are 2 pictures of the leaves, and the flowers, any ideas? Thanks!

 

[JD3000]

European horsechestnut
Aesculus hippocastanum

 

[FreeFallin]

That's it! I think this one may have been trimmed or injured when it was young since it was only 40' or so tall, and then at least 60-70' wide with a short stem. Thanks @JD3000

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Do you have pics of the trunk?

I've seen many hollow trunk trees in UK. Some have had some management of regrowth. They seem to be remnants of copping and other former practices

Seeing these heritage trees really changed my concept of pruning

 

[FreeFallin]

I didn't get trunk pictures unfortunately. I was there in late May and the blooms were amazing and smelled like honey. That campus is in the middle of Regent's Park and many of the trees are 100 or more years old. This tree was likely growing in a time when they were still bleeding people to cure fevers, so I can only imaging what they were doing to "fix" trees in a well groomed brittish garden like this one.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Coppicing etc aren't practices meant to fix trees. They are a management technique to produce a crop of some sort. In past times trees weren't looked at as amenities like we see them now

 

[FreeFallin]

That makes sense.

 

[surveyor]

That leaf reminds me very much of the first picture posted in the fossil leaf imprint picture from a few weeks ago.

http://www.treebuzz.com/forum/threads/brain-teaser.34286/#post-500842