The Chestnut of Number 37

The register gives this chestnut an actual planting year, 1901, which is rarer than it sounds: most trees on this list carry a ten year band and nothing better. It stands at the water's edge of the Oosterpoortsgracht opposite number 37, on the municipal monument list and on the town's tree route, and the register describes a full crown that storms have since knocked about without slowing the tree down. Aesculus hippocastanum is a Balkan tree that reached western Europe in the sixteenth century and was planted everywhere on the strength of two weeks in May. The rest of its case is autumn. Late September the spiny green cases start splitting on the path and the conker inside comes out mahogany brown and polished, the single most collectible object a European tree produces, and worthless the moment it dries out. The species name hippocastanum means horse chestnut, from an old belief that the seeds cured coughing in horses; for people they are simply poisonous. The national register is the only source we have found for this tree, so read the date as its record rather than an independent one. Come with a pocket in October and you will not leave with it empty.