The Copper Beech of the Oosterpoortsgracht

Every copper beech in Europe descends from a handful of freak trees found growing purple in ordinary green forests, most famously in Germany in the seventeenth century. The colour is a mutation that overproduces red pigment, useless to the tree and irresistible to gardeners, and it has been propagated by grafting ever since. This one stands at the water's edge of the Oosterpoortsgracht in Hoorn, beside the Oosterpoort, the fifteenth century gate that is the only one of the town's medieval gates left standing. The national register dates the planting to between 1860 and 1870, roughly 160 years, and lists the tree on the municipal monument list and on the town's own tree route. Through the nineteenth century, as the walls and towers came down, the emptied defences were remade as a walking park, which is the ground this tree grew up in and the reason it has had room. Come in May rather than autumn. New copper beech leaves open translucent, lit red from behind like stained glass, and darken to near black-purple within weeks. By August the crown is a hole in the light. The register is the only source we have found that records this tree individually, so read the age as its estimate rather than a measurement.