Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Final farewell to the oldest Helsinki-ite

A few years ago, Helsinki's oldest inhabitant, a 250-year-old crack willow was struck down by lightning. The stump of the old tree was left in place in the hope that it would sprout again, but this hasn't happened. Today, it will finally be dug up, to be replaced by a young willow, grown from a cutting taken from the old tree.

2 comments:

R.H. said...

What a disaster.

And how surprising. So does that mean Helsinki is 250 years old? Melbourne is 172, but it feels a lot more.

Anna MR said...

No, Helsinki is over 400 - might be 450, in fact, cannot remember, shame on me. The original city was all built of wood, though, so none of it remains - it burned down of several occasions.