The Black Walnut of the Worpplantsoen

This tree exists because of ice. The park across the river was replanted in 1816 and the young trees were damaged by ijsgang, the drifting ice that comes down the IJssel when a frozen river breaks up and shoves plates of ice over the banks. It is a serious force and it does not care about a six-year-old sapling. So the planting was done again in 1820 to 1822, and the register dates this walnut to that second attempt. Black walnut is North American and was an unusual choice for a Dutch public park, then and now. It is grown mostly for its timber, which is among the most valuable in the world, and a two-hundred-year-old one standing in a park rather than a sawmill is a piece of luck. It is easy to identify once you know where to look. Large compound leaves with fifteen or more leaflets, coming into leaf very late and dropping early. In autumn it produces heavy green fruit the size of tennis balls that fall hard and stain everything they touch a deep brown. September, then, and mind your head.