Chapultepec (14)


Source: WTL photograph taken in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City.
Comments: This sign identifies the Ahuehuete (Náhuatl for 'Sargent') tree. Translation:

It is the oldest tree in the [Chapultepec] Forest. According to tradition, it was planted by Nezahualcóyotl following a request by the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. It is said that the Lord of Texcoco was the man who planted the first ahuehuetes in the year 1460; thus the tree lived 500 years until it dried due to a lack of water and pollution in 1969. It has a circumferance of 12.5 meters, and it attained a height of more than 40 m. It was baptized as "The Sargent" by the cadets in the old Colegio Militar (i.e., military prep school), although it was also called "The Centinel." Ahuehuete, in the Náhuatl language, means "old man of the water."

For notes on Nezahualcóyotl, see: => Aztec Notes and => Náhuatl Poems.