The Purple Beech of Parc Tournay-Solvay

Alfred Solvay, brother of the industrial chemist Ernest Solvay, built a country manor at the edge of the Sonian Forest in 1878, and the park around it still carries his family's name today. His daughter Therese Tournay-Solvay later expanded the grounds, and in the early 20th century the landscape architect Jules Buyssens redesigned them into the layout that survives now, mixing exotic plantings with remnants of the original forest vegetation. Among the survivors is a purple beech, its almost black red foliage a deliberate contrast against the ordinary green beeches nearby, part of a group of large trees in the park old enough that several, this one included, appear in the official inventory of the Brussels region's natural heritage. No source gives this specific tree an individual age, only that trees of its kind in the park run from roughly a century and a half to two centuries old, a range wide enough to be honest rather than precise. The park sits directly against the edge of the Sonian Forest in Watermael-Boitsfort, free to enter, and considerably quieter than Brussels' larger, better known green spaces.