The Wilhelminaboom

Most commemorative trees get a plaque. This one got a fence carrying the state sword, the sceptre and the orb. The lime went into the Raadhuisplein in 1898, the year Wilhelmina took the throne at eighteen, and the city set the architect Hendrik Kramer to work on the ironwork around its bed. Gates face each street that meets the square. Crowned letter W's and halberds stand along the rails, with orange twigs, blossom and apples worked into the metal between them. It is a great deal of blacksmithing for one lime, and it tells you precisely how a small provincial capital felt about its new queen. A tinted postcard from around 1910 shows the result a decade in: a young tree inside a fence that already looks the more permanent of the two. The fence has not changed since. The tree has had a century and a quarter to catch up. The date holds up from two directions. The city's own monumental-green walking route puts the planting at 1898, and the national register separately lists a Hollandse linde at this coordinate with a planting band of 1890 to 1900. Fifty years later Leeuwarden planted a second royal lime a few hundred metres north, for Wilhelmina's daughter Juliana. Both are still standing.