An unprecedented striptease, completely, that is, leaving nothing to the imagination, is what the Barcelona banana trees are carrying out these days, a species that, although in numerical decline, is still the iconic tree of the city. Especially from the Eixample. The scene is common these days in many streets. Inside and around the tree well, the bark that until recently covered the plane trees accumulates. The first impression is that, perhaps, something worrying happens. They are sick? On the contrary, it is a symptom of vitality.
Under the bark, the trunk of the plane trees stands out for its light cream color, almost luminous. It has been a sum of factors that has produced this phenomenon. Every year they lose their bark, but not like this time. The radical debarking is due, simply, plainly and happily to the fact that they are growing. The beginning of the season of greatest insolation has gone hand in hand, this year, with some rain that the bananas have taken advantage of to produce new cells. It has been a photosynthesis festival that went unnoticed at street level, for the neighbors, until the trees have begun to shed last year’s clothes, which were suddenly too small for them. What happened is diametrically the opposite of past summers, when water stress forced banana trees to lose leaves en masse when their shade was most needed.