On the parity of the Wiener index

It is a known fact that the Wiener index (i.e. the sum of all distances between pairs of vertices in a graph) of a tree with an odd number of vertices is always even. In this paper, we consider the distribution of the Wiener index and the related tree parameter “internal path length” modulo 2 by means of a generating functions approach as well as by constructing bijections for plane trees.