The Japanese Maple of Angerenstein

Most Japanese maples are shrubs you can see over the top of. This one is on the Dutch national register of monumental trees, which for Acer palmatum is unusual. It grows in the Binnentuin, the inner garden inside Park Angerenstein, and the register dates it to between 1920 and 1930. It was designated on dendrological grounds rather than historical ones, which is the register's way of saying that nothing happened here and the tree itself is the whole reason. A century is a great age for the species in this climate, and the size that comes with it turns a garden plant into something you can stand underneath. Under history the register has written nothing. There is no founder, no anniversary and no legend, only a Japanese maple that somebody set in a corner of a Gelderland estate in the 1920s and that nobody ever got round to removing. Come in late autumn. Acer palmatum is planted almost entirely for one fortnight of the year, when the leaves run through orange into deep red and hold the light like coloured glass, and a hundred-year-old specimen does it at a scale no garden centre plant can manage. The park is free and open daily. Only the register has recorded this tree, so the dating is one authority's band.