Margaret I. Carman Green - Weeping Beech

37 Ave. bet. Bowne St. and Parsons Blvd.

Queens

Directions via Google Maps

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

The Weeping Beech tree that once rooted itself in this park lived for 151 years, from 1847 to 1998 -- one of the City’s few trees to be landmarked. The tree originated at a nobleman’s estate in Beersal, Belgium from whence it was transported to New York City by the efforts of one enterprising gardener. Samuel Bowne Parsons (1819-1907), a prominent horticulturalist and father of Parks Superintendant Samuel Parsons Jr. (1844-1923), obtained the seedling and planted it on the grounds of his renowned nursery. In its maturity, its branches touched the ground and re-rooted, creating a ring of offspring surrounding its immense canopy. In the years before it finally succumbed to old age, it reached sixty feet in height with a “leaf curtain” of eighty feet in diameter. Legend has it that this tree gave rise to generations of Weeping Beeches (Fagus sylvatica) in America.

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