The Plane Trees of Noorderplantsoen

Noorderplantsoen used to be a fortress moat. The park was laid out in 1880 over Groningen's demolished seventeenth century city walls, in the informal English landscape style cities across the Netherlands favoured once their old defences stopped being useful, and it has carried national monument protection since 1971. Along its paths grow more than fifty labelled tree species, among them this pair of London planes, planted close to the park's own opening date and now well past a century old. The Dutch national monumental tree register records the pair without individual measurements, situating them near Werfstraat on the park's western side. London plane, a hybrid bred in seventeenth century Europe from American sycamore and Oriental plane, tolerates compacted city soil and hard pruning better than almost any other large tree, which is why it anchors so much of Europe's oldest parkland alongside species chosen purely for looks. Because the register treats this as one paired entry rather than two individually pinned trunks, the coordinates mark the general spot rather than one exact tree; the pair stands close enough together to find both without wandering. Free, public parkland, about a fifteen minute walk from Centraal station.