The Turkish Hazel of the Grand Sablon

The Grand Sablon is better known for its antiques market and its chocolate shops than for a tree, which is exactly why the Turkish hazel standing in it is easy to walk past. The region's official inventory of remarkable trees ranks it eleventh of its species anywhere in Brussels, 17 metres tall with a 16 metre crown and a trunk 208 centimetres around, recorded as fully healthy and holding, in the register's own words, a central position in the square's landscape. Turkish hazel is the one hazel that grows as a proper tree rather than a multi-stemmed shrub, with a straight trunk and a tidy, pyramidal crown that made it a favourite for European city squares long before anyone thought to protect individual specimens. It flowers in late winter, small and easy to miss, and carries its nuts through summer inside a spiky husk that looks nothing like a supermarket hazelnut. Only the official register documents this specific tree so far, which is stated here rather than smoothed over. What the register gives is precise and consistent (rank, dimensions, a health check), which is a different kind of confidence than a second written source, and one this page is honest about.