The Oriental Plane of the Doelentuin

The oldest plane on this page is not the London plane that lines Delft's canals but one of its parents. The national register of monumental trees records an oriental plane in the Doelentuin, planted between 1860 and 1870. That makes it about 155 to 165 years old, and by the same register's dates roughly twenty years older than the city's London planes on this page. The oriental plane comes from south-eastern Europe and western Asia. Crossed with the American sycamore, it gave the world the London plane now planted along streets across Europe. Its leaves give it away: cut deeper, into longer fingers, than the hybrid's. The register says little else. It lists a single tree in a municipal park garden, open to visit, with its history down as unknown. Three wingnuts planted between 1900 and 1910 stand almost on top of it, and from the air the crowns run together so closely that nobody has matched the register's pin to one of them. The pin here is approximate for that reason, and the leaves are how you find it. The streets around the garden still carry the vocabulary of a civic guard: Doelenstraat for the shooting range, Schutterstraat for the marksmen, Vaandelstraat for their banner. How a plane from the far side of Europe came to stand among them, the register does not say. Nobody has published its girth or height. If you have measured it, tell us.