The Winter Oak of Zuiderplantsoen

In the summer of 2025, a paving contractor's permit nearly ended this tree's life over a wheelchair-accessible path. The winter oak growing beside a footpath in Groningen's Zuiderplantsoen, part of the old Sterrebos, is a genuine rarity: over 95 percent of the Netherlands' native oaks are summer oaks, and this is one of the remaining few sessile, or winter, oaks, distinguishable by its straighter trunk and stalkless acorns. When the municipality applied to fell eight trees to widen accessibility through the reopened park, the campaign group Bomenridders objected specifically to this one, arguing a narrower path could save it. Seven of the eight felling permits were refused outright; the eighth, for this oak, went unused after the breeding season closed the window, and the alderman announced in June 2025 that accessibility around it was good enough without cutting it down. The story has not stayed tidy since. By April 2026, residents were counting roughly nine dead branches on the tree, still bare while everything around it leafed out, and blaming the thick paving laid close to its trunk for choking its roots and shedding rainwater away instead of into the soil. The tree survived the saw. Whether it survives the path built to spare it is still being decided, one growing season at a time.