The Bald Cypress at the Monnikendam

The oldest tree in this garden is no longer in it. A copper beech planted in 1750, counted among the twenty oldest trees in the country by the Bomenstichting, stood behind the Monnikendam until it was felled. The cypress on the far side of the water is still there, and three separate sources agree on when it went in: 1830. That agreement is worth noting, because it almost never happens. The national tree register, a Wageningen-linked city nature walk and the municipality's own tree-walk booklet all place a Taxodium distichum in this private garden and all give the same planting year, which puts the tree at roughly 190 years. It is a conifer that behaves like a broadleaf. In its home range, the swamp forests of the American southeast, it stands in standing water and pushes woody knees up through the mud; here it turns rust red in November, drops every needle, and spends the winter looking dead before leafing out again in late spring. Behind it is the Monnikendam itself, the water gate of Amersfoort's second city wall, built around 1400 and now holding a restaurant. The garden is private and you cannot walk in. You look at the tree from the Zuidsingel or from the bridge, which is exactly how the nature walk describes it: on the left of the water, an old cypress.