Holy Trees
Résumé
Puxi's streets are lined with plane trees, especially in the former French Concession (and particularly in the Luwan and Xuhui districts). There are a few different varieties of plane tree, but the one found in Shanghai, is the hybrid platane hispanica. In China they are called French Plane trees (faguo wutong - 法国梧桐), for they were first planted along the Avenue Joffre (now Huai Hai lu - 淮海路) in 1902 by the French. Their life span is long, over a thousand years, and they may grow as high as 40 metres.
