The Nieuwe Plein Plane

When Arnhem drove a road tunnel past this plane, it did not cut the roots. It moved them. The national tree register's file for this specimen records that the main roots were led under the tunnel box to a planting bed thirty metres away, so the tree now feeds from soil on the far side of a piece of infrastructure. It was not the first favour. Back in the 1970s the growing site had already needed repair, and a grate was set into the pavement to keep the paving off the trunk base. Both were necessary because of where it stands. Nieuwe Plein is the junction between the old centre and the railway station, ground that has been opened up again and again for the ring road around the city. The register dates the planting to between 1880 and 1890, roughly 140 years, and still calls the tree in fairly good shape: little visible damage, and vital at the last inspection. Planes are the species cities plant precisely because they put up with this kind of treatment. Not many are asked to prove it quite so thoroughly. No source outside the register has written this tree down, so read the planting band as one authority's estimate. It stands on the open verge by the ramp to the Nelson Mandela bridge, free, no gate, about ten minutes from the station.