Four metres of trunk and nowhere to put it.
Ancient Trees in the Oosterplantsoen
Two planes in this park are the same species and the older one is in worse shape, which comes down to where somebody put them.
The plane on the Pakhuisstraat went in around 1870 and the town's register notes its base being squeezed by the pavement; the one a couple of hundred metres behind the aviary went in around 1890, out of the way of the street, and the register calls it a perfect tree. Both are over four metres round. Seven of the trees we map stand here, along the Oosterpoortsgracht and around the Veliusbrug, most of them planted between 1860 and 1910 when the town laid out the strip. Several carry recorded problems, fungal infections at the root collar on two silver maples among them, which the register logs and the town keeps watching. Hoorn signposts its own tree route through the park. It is free and open daily.
All 7 stand in Hoorn, which maps 12 remarkable trees in total.
There were two of these by the Veliusbrug and now there is one.
The register gives this one a planting year rather than a band: 1871, at the waterside of the Oosterpoortsgracht in the Oosterplantsoen.
This plane stands behind the aviary in the Oosterplantsoen, out of the way of the street, and it has grown accordingly: a trunk of over four metres round and, in the register's words, a perfect tree.
Silver lime is the last of the limes to flower, and in a park full of trees that have already finished it can be the only thing working in July.
The register gives this chestnut an actual planting year, 1901, which is rarer than it sounds: most trees on this list carry a ten year band and nothing better.
A fungal infection is climbing this maple from the roots up.
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