This Toronto tree has nearly 200 Google reviews. How ‘Rodney’ became an international tourist attraction

By Mark Colley
The Toronto Star
March 18, 2025
Category: Froggy Foibles
Region: Canada, Canada East

It just might be Toronto’s most unlikely tourist attraction. It is pipsqueak-ish in size, not much taller than a single storey of a house. Its branches are scrawny and, at this time of year, empty of leaves, buds or nesting birds. It even has steep competition from its own neighbours just south of Trinity Bellwoods, such as the towering maple across the road and the elegant evergreen up the street. But this young Eastern Redbud is the little tree that could. The tree — its name is Rodney, the owners will tell you — has become an oddball local celebrity. Since being planted less than five years ago, Rodney has already gotten its own Google Maps pin, visits from tourists around the world and a handful of viral social media posts in recent days that have sent this unsuspecting tree’s celebrity into the arboreal stratosphere.

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