Seasons1 of 4
A single lime tree marks the exact spot where three Brussels communes meet, and it has been doing the job since at least 1777, when the Ferraris map, the first detailed survey of the Austrian Netherlands, recorded it at the boundary point of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Berchem-Sainte-Agathe and Dilbeek. Later maps track it by name. An 1821 survey shows it beside a chapel demolished that same decade, and an 1858 map of Brussels and its surroundings labels the spot simply Kaster Linde. Its trunk has thickened from 2.75 metres around in the early 1900s, when the Belgian botanist Chalon first measured it for his book on the country's trees, to 3.15 metres today, growth that puts its real age comfortably past two centuries even before the documentary trail is counted. A street and a nearby cafe, In de Linde, both take their name from it. Unlike a garden specimen chosen for its looks, this tree exists because generations of surveyors needed a fixed point that would not move, and a slow growing lime, marking a boundary since before Belgium existed as a country, turned out to be exactly that.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Kasterlindenstraat, opposite Cafe In de Linde, Dilbeek, Brussels
You can recognise it by its 3.15 metre trunk marking the exact point where three Brussels communes meet. It stands on Kasterlindenstraat in Dilbeek, opposite Cafe In de Linde.
Bus to the Berchem-Sainte-Agathe / Dilbeek border
In bloom
late June, when its flowers scent the whole street corner
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.