The Juliana Lime of the Hilvertsweg

A lime was the safe choice, and that is the point of it. Dutch villages have planted limes at crossroads and in front of churches for centuries, the tree you hold a market under or hang a lantern in, and this one stands at the fork of the Hilvertsweg and the Bosdrift next to a horse chestnut, with worn inscribed stones at the foot of both. The register records the pair as planted in 1937 for the wedding of Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard, and dates this one to the 1930s, so roughly 90 years. It is the only source we have located for the tree. Juliana was twenty eight at the wedding, became queen in 1948 and abdicated in 1980 in favour of her daughter, which for a Dutch monarch is the ordinary way to leave the job. Tilia x europaea forgives almost anything done to it. Cut one to a stump and it comes back from the base, which is why so many survive road widening that finished off everything else at a junction. In late June the flowers open, pale and not much to look at, and the scent reaches you across the road. Stand under it then and the noise overhead is bees rather than traffic.