The Poplar of Zuiderpark

At 33 metres, the balsam poplar in Zuiderpark is one of the tallest individually recorded trees in the municipal register covering all of Den Bosch, taller than most of the city's church spires. It predates the park around it by decades: Zuiderpark itself only opened in 1958, and gained a deliberately planted circle of ornamental poplars during a 1993-1999 redesign, but this specific tree, at roughly 90 years old on the register's own count, was already growing here before either the park or its poplar circle existed, a survivor from whatever stood on the site before, rather than a member of the later planting. Balsam poplar is grown more for its resin-scented spring buds than for ornament, the smell carrying across a park on a warm day before anyone spots the tree responsible. No second source beyond the register documents this specific poplar's history, an honest gap rather than a missing footnote, but its height and girth are themselves a verifiable record, not a claim resting on memory or estimate.