storyThe trees on the Lamphun road

ต้นยางบนถนนลำพูน

Planted for an emperor's commissioner, saved by a bypass, polled in 2020.

FredTC · CC BY-SA 4.0

What it is

About a thousand yang-na along the old road south, from the Nawarat Bridge to the provincial line, ordered under Chao Phraya Surasi, Siam's high commissioner for the north. Thai PBS dates the planting 20 October 1882; Thai Wikipedia cites a telegram of 1900. The two dates are recorded and not reconciled.

The long version

Infill planting in 1954. A protected-environment zone 40 m each side since 2015. A storm in 2016 brought some down. A royal request not to cut them is on record. The Mae Jo poll of October 2020, 403 people: 54 percent no problem, 61 percent keep them, 4 percent remove them.

Inference — the argument against the trees is that branches fall on traffic, and the argument for them is everything else. The traffic is there because the road is there; the road was the main road to Bangkok until 1969, and then it was not. A tree beside a bypassed road is the safest tree in the province. The question the poll did not ask is what the Superhighway did for the trees, and the answer is: everything.

Connected to

• The Yang Tree Road, Chiang Mai to Lamphun The road.
• Chao Phraya Surasi Wisitsak The commissioner.
• Route 11, the Superhighway The bypass.

Named here by

• The Yang Tree Road, Chiang Mai to Lamphun The long version.
• The Army Map Service sheet, Ban Saraphi The trees.

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