The Beech of Vrouwenhof

This beech stands behind Restaurant Vrouwenhof, banded by the national register to a planting around 1840, roughly 190 years old. Left alone behind a building rather than beside a road, a beech this age has usually had the easiest kind of life the species can have: no pruning against traffic, no root compaction from foot or vehicle traffic, room enough to build the wide, low, dome-shaped crown that beeches produce when nothing crowds them. A beech's bark stays smooth and grey its entire life, never cracking into plates the way an oak's does, which is part of why old beeches are the trees most often carved with initials that never grow over. At nearly two centuries this one has likely accumulated its share, along with the deep leaf litter underneath that beech woodland is known for, since almost nothing grows in the permanent shade a mature beech casts. The register describes nothing of the tree's own history beyond species and decade, which is typical for a tree valued for standing rather than for any single event attached to it. If you know more, tell us.