The Red Horse Chestnut of Wilhelminaplein

Half of this tree is American. The red horse chestnut is a cross between the white-flowered chestnut of every Dutch avenue and Aesculus pavia, a red-flowered species from the American southeast, and it turns up in the record in Germany around 1820 with nobody quite able to say who made it. The result is the best-behaved chestnut on any street. In May it holds up candles of deep rose-pink rather than white, a little later than its white parent, so a street planted with both appears to flower twice. It sets very few conkers, and the husks it does set have almost no spines, which makes it a disappointing tree for anyone under twelve. In exchange it largely escapes the leaf miner moth that has been browning out Dutch horse chestnuts by August for twenty years now; the caterpillars strongly prefer the white parent, and this hybrid stays green into autumn while its neighbours look scorched. This one stands in public planting on the Wilhelminaplein in Amstelveen, with a registered planting somewhere between 1920 and 1930, which puts it at roughly a century old. That is all anybody has written down. The national register's history field for this tree is blank, and no second source describes it at all. If you know who planted it, or what for, tell us and we will add it.