The Wingnut of Nieuwe Plantage

A wingnut gets its name from a seed built with two papery blades, and this one has grown for well over a century on ground that used to be Delft's city wall. The wall came down around 1890, and the register credits the new layout to a landscape architect surnamed Zocher, a name attached to some of the country's best known nineteenth century parks, who chose large, fast-growing species for the reclaimed rampart. That is the register's own account of why this edge of the city carries so many good trees planted at once. Caucasian wingnuts come from forests around the Black Sea and the Caspian, and they grow faster than almost anything else planted alongside them in a Dutch garden, oaks and limes included. This one was planted between 1890 and 1900, putting it at around 130 years old, on a strip of the old rampart directly across the street from an ordinary Delft address, number 28 Nieuwe Plantage. Nothing beyond the national monumental tree register has been found to confirm it further. If you know this tree, tell us.