The Poplar of Lauwersgrachtpark

The Netherlands' oldest poplar grows behind a concert hall, on the last stretch of canal Arnhem never filled in. Most of the city's old defensive moat became streets generations ago; the Lauwersgracht survived by accident, and this Canadian poplar has grown alongside it since somewhere between 1750 and 1800, long enough that the Bomenstichting's national register of monumental trees lists it as the oldest of its kind in the country. It is not a pure species but a hybrid clone, one of the first crosses of Populus nigra, Europe's native black poplar, with an American parent, made in France around 1800 and planted across the continent before anyone had settled on what to call it. A postcard from around 1920 already shows a mature tree leaning over the water in almost the same spot; a photograph from 2008 shows the same reflection, barely changed. It stands today in Lauwersgrachtpark, tucked behind Musis Sacrum's concert stages just off the Eusebiusbuitensingel, the kind of tree a city walks past on the way to a show without knowing it is looking at the oldest poplar in the Netherlands.