The Mespilifolia Oak of Noorderplantsoen

Most oaks in Noorderplantsoen are the ordinary native kind, but this one carries a cultivar name, Mespilifolia, medlar-leaved, for foliage that reads narrower and more textured than a typical sessile oak's. It grows on the park's eastern edge, clearly visible from the residential street the park backs onto, which is exactly why the Dutch national monumental tree register singles it out from the small group it was registered alongside as the specimen worth calling monumental. Quercus petraea "Mespilifolia" grows a broad, loose crown with branches that droop slightly at the tips, and old specimens like this one develop a shallow-grooved bark distinct from the deeper furrows of a standard sessile oak. The register dates the planting to the 1880s, putting it close in age to the park's own founding in 1880, when the city converted its demolished city-wall moat into the landscaped park that still carries national monument protection today. One of more than fifty tree species planted along Noorderplantsoen's paths, this oak is the kind of tree a visitor might walk past without a second look from the street side and stop for once they know the cultivar name to look for. Free, public parkland, roughly a fifteen minute walk from Centraal station.