The Twisted Catalpa of the Hortus

The trunk turns as it rises, a slow corkscrew that the national guide to Amsterdam's monumental trees singles out as the reason to stop. This is a southern catalpa, native to a small pocket of the southeastern United States and far more common in European gardens than in its own range. The city register has it as N1776, planted in 1910, trunk 318 centimetres around; the Bomenstichting guide puts the planting somewhere between 1910 and 1920 and measures the same three metres, which is about as close as two independent sources ever get. Dutch has two names for the species and both are literal: trompetboom, trumpet tree, for the cream and yellow flowers with speckled throats that cover it in July, and bonenboom, bean tree, for the long thin seed pods that hang on through winter and rattle. The leaves are the size of a spread hand. The same guide adds that catalpas keep mosquitoes and flies at a distance, which is not the worst property for a garden on the edge of the Plantage canals. The Hortus Botanicus has grown plants on this ground since 1638, so the catalpa arrived when the garden was already 270 years old and still counts as one of its younger residents. Entry needs a Hortus ticket.