The Horse Chestnut of Casinotuin

Five horse chestnuts stand within sixty metres of each other along this stretch of the Casinotuin, and this is the thickest by a clear margin: four metres round against roughly three and a half for the next in line. That is the field mark and also its limit. With five similar trees in one short walk, expect to compare trunks rather than to spot it from the path. The group is a survivor set rather than a fixed avenue, because the park has already lost one of its monumental chestnuts, which went over at the Nachtegaalslaantje corner. The register puts this one at about a century and 24 metres tall, with vitality marked as reduced. That is common in older Dutch horse chestnuts: the species has spent two decades under bleeding canker and leaf miner, and one that reaches four metres round with neither finishing it off has done well. No source other than the municipal register names this individual tree, which is why it is flagged here rather than presented as documented. For a fortnight in May the whole group flowers at once, white candles standing upright over every crown, and the question of which trunk is thickest stops mattering entirely.