Pollarded Plane Trees – The Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California

The Music Concourse, a landscaped basin between the California Academy of Sciences and the de Young Museum, is a vital civic and cultural space within Golden Gate Park, hosting free concerts on Sundays during the summer and serving as a respite and picnic spot year-round for visitors to nearby cultural facilities.

The concourse’s grove of pollarded (severely pruned) trees are primarily London plane trees and Wych elms, with some maples and walnuts. (In case you were wondering, the Oxford English Dictionary defines "pollarded" as referring originally to an animal of a kind naturally horned, such as an ox or a stag, which has cast or lost its horns; or to an ox, sheep, or goat of a hornless variety. In his novel, Little Dorritt, Charles Dickens borrowed the word to describe bald-headed old men.) It’s not clear when the present trees were planted. Original drawings and photos of the concourse show fewer trees.