The Cattenpoelseweg Oak

Two trees on the national monumental register stand seventy metres apart on this ordinary residential corner, and neither has a single line of history attached to it. This is the older of the pair. The register lists it as Zomereik Cattenpoelseweg, a pedunculate oak planted between 1860 and 1870, owned by the city, growing on the public green where Cattenpoelseweg meets Wagnerlaan. Under history it has written nothing at all. That gap is worth sitting with for a moment. An oak planted in the 1860s on what is now a suburban junction was almost certainly not planted for a junction. Whatever it was put in as, a boundary marker, part of an avenue, a piece of somebody's grounds, the city grew out around it, the houses arrived, the road was surfaced and named, and the tree simply kept going. At roughly 160 years old it is the reason this corner has any canopy at all. The Wagnerlaan poplar is seventy metres away, so see them together. Both stand on public verge, both are free, and neither asks anything of you beyond turning up. The register is our only source here. Dutch tree enthusiasts appear to have written about this oak elsewhere, and if you know where, send it and we will strengthen the entry.