() is a roundabout in Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City, that connects Paseo de la Reforma with Río Rhin Street and Niza Street. It is known for its tall palm tree that remained in the middle for a century. As of , the roundabout is the only one along Reforma that has never had a monument. The building of the Mexican Stock Exchange is at the roundabout, opposite the Zona Rosa. The area is serviced by the city's Metrobús system at La Palma bus stop, whose pictogram features the palm tree.
The palm died in 2022 due to pathogens. After a non-binding poll, a Taxodium mucronatum (otherwise known as Montezuma cypress or ahuehuete) was placed in June 2022 and the city government officially renamed the traffic circle the (Ahuehuete roundabout). At the same time, activists placed an anti-monument in memory of the more than 100,000 disappeared people in the country and symbolically renamed the place the (Roundabout of the Disappeared). The tree, however, had an unfavorable adaptation and eight months later was removed for rehabilitation and replaced with a similar tree.
History
The roundabout was included in Louis Bolland and Ferdinand von Rosenzweig's original plan for the boulevard, and finished as Reforma's second roundabout completed in 1865. The Angel of Independence column was constructed in 1910 to celebrate the centenary of Independence and, according to one of the versions, the roundabout could be set aside for the construction of another memorial to mark the bicentennial of Independence in 2010. Up to ten palm trees were eventually planted there, and the earliest known photograph showing the middle tree is from 1920. All but the central palm tree were removed around 1950.
Carlos Martínez Assad, emeritus researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, disputed the age of the palm and considers its real age to be between 70 and 80 years as, according to him, it was a gift from Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia, to Lázaro Cárdenas as compensation for his stand against Italy's occupation during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. He also said that the traffic circle was reserved for a sculpture of Benito Juárez that was sent instead to Guanajuato.
The palm tree died in 2022 as a result of pathogens and fungi that had infected several palm trees in the city. On 24 April, the government conducted a symbolic farewell ceremony in the late afternoon, and that evening, it was cut down. Its remains were transferred to a vivarium in Xochimilco, where artists would elaborate sculptures with the unaffected wood. The palm tree had a height of high.
Ahuehuete roundabout
The city government, headed by Claudia Sheinbaum, surveyed to question which tree should replace it, with options including a jacaranda or a Montezuma cypress; however, a palm tree would not be able to do so because it would contract the same pathogens. A Montezuma cypress, also known as an ahuehuete, was chosen in a non-binding poll with more than 77,000 votes, Sheinbaum announced it would be planted on 5 June 2022 (on World Environment Day). The 20-year-old tree, a native of Monterrey, Nuevo León, is tall and weighs .
Two days after the tree was planted, a motorist lost control of her car and slammed into the roundabout, severing one of the wires holding the tree up and tipping it over. The tree had a dry appearance for several weeks as a result of the accident and the habitat shift. The tree started to exhibit signs of improvement by the end of July of that year. In September 2022, the city government walled off the traffic circle to bar pedestrian entry because of the recovery slowness. The safety fence was struck by another car the following month. In November 2022, Saúl Alcántara, a specialist in garden conservation at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and who collaborated in the successful transfer of other similar specimens in the city, said that the tree's chance of improvement was minimal. Alcántara attributed the causes of the drying out to incorrect re-planting beyond subsequent events.
The city government announced on 9 March that since the tree did not improve, it would be replaced with a tree of the same species and nursery. Two days later, the tree was removed and sent to the Xochimilco vivarium for its rehabilitation.