The Caucasian Wingnut of Mont des Arts

Caucasian wingnut takes its name from what it does with its seeds rather than what it looks like: long, pendulous strings of winged fruit that hang from the branches through late summer, an unmistakable trait for a tree most visitors would otherwise mistake for an oversized walnut. Native to the forests of the western Caucasus, it reached European gardens in the early 19th century as one of many exotic imports that formal city gardens across the continent competed to acquire. This specimen, girthed at 173 centimetres with a 13 metre crown, is legally inscribed on Brussels' official register of remarkable trees and grows near the Mont des Arts, the raised terrace garden between the city's upper and lower halves, built over an underground car park in the 1950s. The species suckers readily from its roots, often forming small groves rather than single trunks in the wild, though this one is recorded and protected as an individual specimen. It stands in the open, free, on a short walk that also takes in the garden's oak and its far larger ailanthus.