De Eik op 't Zeggelt

The oldest tree in Enschede is not on anybody's estate. It stands in ordinary public planting in a residential district and it has a name anyway, which is usually a sign that people have been walking past it long enough to need one. The register bands it 1750 to 1800, which makes it two to two and a half centuries and puts its first decades in a Twente of farms and hand looms, before the mills, before the railway, and long before the town around it. Enschede burned almost entirely to the ground in 1862, when a fire took the whole centre in a few hours. This oak was standing well outside it and is one of the few living things in the city that predates that day. The register gives its position to six decimal places, which is the tell that somebody stood at the trunk with a satellite receiver rather than pointing at a street. That is unusual in this dataset and it means the pin is as good as pins get. Pedunculate oak, so acorns on long stalks and leaves that sit almost directly on the twig. In October there will be a great many of them underfoot.