It may be the second oldest river on our planet, and it originates in France...! This ancient tree-like river, which then flows towards Belgium and the Netherlands, is an organism that is between 320 and 340 million years old. So it's no surprise to see its strange shape: anyone who has ever seen reconstructions of the first trees (which “appeared” on Earth a few million years before the Meuse itself) knows how different they could look, almost alien...

A bit like the Tree River Meuse, which stretches narrowly from the French and Belgian Ardennes, two very rural, wooded, sparsely populated areas with a rugged topography, before reaching northern Wallonia and the Netherlands, two areas that are completely different from the rest of the tree: flat and densely populated. The Meuse then expands with new tributaries swelling its foliage, transforming the watershed into a densely populated, artificialised area, profoundly transformed by humans.

The structure of the tree itself has not been spared by the creative hand of our architect species and its ever more powerful tools: several of the roots or parts of the trunk of the Meuse are in fact canals, forming a complex root system, a sublime network with multiple junctions, locks and dykes, the result of a skilful balance between facilitating river trade in what is the maritime heart of Europe and combating what lies at the end of the river: the ocean. It is in the Meuse delta, shared with the Rhine, that many of the historic hydraulic structures erected by the Dutch in their fight against the sea and storms are located, against those terrible marine submersions caused by the incursions of the elements into the land.

If the Meuse were a tree, it would undoubtedly be a yew: a tree with a very long lifespan, reflecting the age of the River Tree. It lends itself very well to pruning, again reflecting the delta, which has been greatly modified by humans, and it is generally small in size: the Meuse is definitely not a giant tree, especially in comparison with the other rivers in this series. A symbol of death, it also resonates with Verdun, upstream from the river where hundreds of thousands of soldiers fell a century ago.

The Meuse yew, Taxus Mosa