Historic Pine Tree

This is a pine 240-year-old pine tree in Paris's Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Garden), planted in 1774 by Antoine_Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836). Jussieu was one of a family of eminent botanists involved in establishing the Jardin des Plantes. He is said to have visited the sixty-year-old tree the day he died, even though blind. We pass the nearby Metro station Jussieu every day, and I must confess I had not known the origin of the name until today.

I was visiting an outdoor exhibition of photographs on the work of paleontologists based at the nearby Museum of Natural History, and their quests for fossils at French sites. It was vivid and informative.