The Horse Chestnut of the Pond

This horse chestnut stands behind the pond in Emile van Loonpark, banded by the national register to a planting around 1870, roughly 160 years old. The park once held an older tree still, a Dutch lime the register bands to somewhere between 1750 and 1800, but the register records that lime as declared dead in 1998, so this chestnut is the park's registered veteran now. A horse chestnut planted beside water has usually had reliable growing conditions its whole life, and at 160 years this one should show the full domed crown and heavy branch structure the species develops when left largely alone. Every May it produces the upright white flower spikes chestnuts are planted for across Europe, and reflected in the pond behind it, the display reads differently than a chestnut standing on hard pavement elsewhere in this list. The register gives no further history for this tree, only species and decade. Emile van Loonpark is public and open daily, and this chestnut is the reason to walk to the far side of the pond rather than stopping at the park's edge. If you know more about it, tell us.