The Plane of the Willem Kes Plantsoen

The national tree register knows the decade this plane was planted and admits it knows nothing else. Under history, the entry says: unknown. What it does give is a planting band of 1880 to 1890, which puts the tree somewhere around 136 to 146 years old, that the municipality owns it, and that visitors are welcome. Nobody has ever put a tape around the trunk. There is no girth figure in the file at all, which for a monumental plane in the middle of a Dutch city centre is an odd blank. It stands in the Willem Kes Plantsoen, the small public square on Sint Jorisweg named after the conductor born in this city, directly in front of the Kunstmin theatre. So it has spent well over a century watching audiences arrive in daylight and leave in the dark, and it has stood through everything the twentieth century sent down this street. Dordrecht signposts it, which is the useful part. The city's own Bomenridders walking route, the Tree Knights, stops at the theatre at Sint Jorisweg 76 and names this plane alongside the white horse chestnut about 25 metres away. That turns the visit into a two-tree errand on one small green rather than a single stop. If anyone has measured that trunk, tell us and we will add the number.