The Tulip Trees of Nolenspark

These two tulip trees likely went into Monseigneur Nolenspark during the same 1886 westward expansion of Maastricht's Stadspark that brought in the park's black walnuts and its weeping silver limes along the Haet ende Nijt bank, all under Lievin Rosseels' design. Nobody recorded the exact planting year for this pair specifically, so the register places them in the same general period as the rest of the expansion rather than on a dated line of its own. Tulip tree is not related to the tulip at all, named only for flowers shaped like the bulb, and it is one of the tallest-growing hardwoods in eastern North America, capable of well over 50 metres in its native range even if Dutch specimens rarely approach that. Its leaves have a distinctive squared-off tip, unlike almost any other tree grown in Europe, which makes it one of the easiest species in this park to identify at a glance even without a label. The pair stands in the open near Van Heylerhofflaan, free, close enough to Stadspark's record-holding plane row and the park's other 1880s plantings to make one stop worth several.