The Black Locust of Kleverlaan

This black locust has its feet in a hedge. The register puts it in the first plot on the left as you come through the entrance, along the path, with the base of the trunk standing in clipped greenery, which is an odd berth for a tree of nearly a century. Robinia pseudoacacia arrived in Europe from the Appalachians in the early seventeenth century and carries the name of Jean Robin, gardener to the French kings. It spread across the continent as a street and park tree because it grows fast, tolerates poor thin soil, and smells extraordinary for about two weeks a year. In late May and early June it hangs white pea flowers in chains and the scent carries a long way down a quiet path. The rest of the year it is a scruffier proposition: deeply furrowed bark like twisted rope, a crown that looks half assembled, limbs that snap in storms. The register dates the planting to between 1920 and 1930, so roughly 95 to 105 years, and it is the only record we have found of this particular tree. No second source names it, so read the age as the register's estimate. It stands within a hundred metres of the red oak and the silver lime, which makes all three one short loop just inside the gate.