A Storyteller From Nature

The iconic French planes in Shanghai are more than just trees - they are an intrinsic part of society that tell the stories of the roads they line

The appearance of small buds on the branches and the infusion of color to the freckled trunks of Shanghai's ubiquitous plane trees are just some of the subtle ways Mother Nature announces the arrival of spring.

The Shanghainese people call these trees "French planes" because it was the French who introduced the species to the city. Historians say that it was the immigrants from France at the beginning of the 20th century who had planted these trees all over the former French Concession in an attempt to fight homesickness.