The palms await the “old man from the water”
“Huehue”, a Nahuatl term that means “old”, is related to the wisdom accumulated by the grandparents, and “atl”, a voice of the same language whose meaning is “water”, make up the two roots of the word “ahuehuete”, it is say, “the old man of the water”.
After centuries of growth, its trunk reaches an average diameter of 2 meters and a height of 30 meters, according to Salvador Arias.
It is a tree that to date can be found in the Bosque de Chapultepec, where Eric Hágsater, Mexican botanist and director of the herbarium of the Mexican Association of Orchidology, has carried out exploration walks for decades.
“In that area, the ahuehuetes have been replaced by other types of trees, because many have died due to the excessive exploitation of the aquifers,” says the also editor of Icones Orchidacearum, a digital publication that this year released the existence of a new species of orchid, native to Chiapas.
On top of the ahuehuete, according to Hágsater, other plants such as orchids or ivy do not usually grow, nor does it bear fruit; however, the birds find its foliage a good place to build their nests.
There are two famous ahuehuetes in the country: the first is known as the “Tree of the Sad Night”, located in Popotla, Mexico City.
“Under which tradition tells that Hernán Cortés saw his troops parade, defeated by the Aztecs,” reads volume 3 of the Agricultural Encyclopedia of Related Knowledge (1945).
The other is the tree of Santa María del Tule, in Oaxaca. “In its trunk there is, almost hidden by new fabrics, an inscription recalling the visit of Baron Alejandro de Humboldt”, is expressed in the same volume of the encyclopedia.
And the 22 palm trees that surround the roundabout of Paseo de la Reforma seem to already know this story and are anxious to welcome the “old man from the water” with the sound of their leaves shaken by the wind, this June 5, the day on which according to the government of Mexico City, it will be planted in the middle of them.