The Elm of the Oosterpoort

Dutch elm disease is named after the Dutch scientists who identified the fungus in the 1920s, not after the country's elms, but it took those too. Two waves of it, the second from the 1960s, removed the elm from most of the Netherlands as a street tree. This one has come through both. It stands on the east side of the Oosterpoort, the fifteenth century gate that is the last of Hoorn's medieval gates, at the water's edge, and the register dates it to between 1880 and 1890, so roughly 140 years. Having survived the beetle, it lost its top to a storm, probably the summer storm of 2023, and carries other wind damage besides. The register still calls the trunk impressive, and notes how well it greens up in spring. That is fair. Ulmus x hollandica leafs out in a hard, glossy green that the limes and planes around it cannot match, the leaves rough as sandpaper on top and lopsided at the base, which is the elm giveaway. Before the leaves come, in February, the whole crown turns dull red with tufted flowers. The national register is the only source we have found for this tree, so read the age as its estimate. If you know when the top came out, we would like to hear it.