The Variegated Maple of Rengerspark

The park gate carries 1904 in its ironwork, and so, near enough, does the tree standing just inside it. Rengerspark was a private gift. In 1902 the former mayor W.J. van Welderen baron Rengers and his wife handed the ground to the city, Hendrik Copijn laid it out, and it opened in 1904 with more than fifty labelled tree species in it. A few steps inside the entrance on the Spanjaardslaan stands a sycamore of the cultivar 'Leopoldii', which the city's list of its ten most special trees names outright and dates to that opening year. The national register agrees within a decade: a bontbladige esdoorn on the south side of the park, planting band 1900 to 1910. Spring is when the cultivar earns its place. The new leaves come out mottled pink, cream and green rather than plain green, as though somebody had been careless with the paint, and they hold that colouring for weeks before darkening. Nothing about it is accidental. Somebody choosing the trees for a brand new park in 1904 wanted a maple that would do this at the gate, and 122 years later it still does. The park became a rijksmonument in 2001, which put Copijn's layout under protection. The maple has stood through the whole of it, and through the two wars that came in between.