What does Pippin first describe seeing in the palantir?

Pippin first describes seeing the white tree of Gondor in the palantír. After looking into the seeing-stone taken from Orthanc, he tells Gandalf that he saw a white tree standing in a courtyard.

The vision connects Pippin to Minas Tirith, Gondor’s capital, where the White Tree grows in the Court of the Fountain. The tree is the emblem of Gondor and represents the kingdom’s ancient royal line, whose ancestry reaches back to Númenor. Its decline mirrors Gondor’s political and spiritual troubles.

Pippin’s experience is not an ordinary view through a window. The palantír is one of the seeing-stones created in the Elder Days, and Sauron uses the stone of Minas Ithil to communicate with or intimidate those who look into it. Pippin sees more than he understands and is overwhelmed by the encounter.

Readers sometimes confuse the white tree with Sauron’s Eye or with images of Orc armies, but those are later associations with the palantír’s visions and the war. Pippin’s first remembered image is the White Tree of Gondor.