The Poplar of the Bloemenmarkt

This Canadian poplar grows on a car park at the Bloemenmarkt, Roosendaal's flower market square, banded by the national register to a planting around 1870, roughly 160 years old. Canadian poplar is itself a hybrid, crossed from American and European black poplars sometime in the eighteenth century and planted across Europe ever since for how fast it grows: a young tree can add a metre or more of height a year, reaching a size in a few decades that other species take a century to match. That speed comes at a cost in longevity and structural soundness, so a Canadian poplar surviving to 160 years, on a car park rather than in a sheltered park setting, is a genuinely long run for the species. Poplars of this age often carry visible deadwood and cavities, part of what makes a veteran specimen valuable as habitat even as it becomes more likely to lose limbs in storms. The register records nothing about this tree beyond its species and decade. Growing up on a car park rather than a green space is an unusual setting for the list; if you know how it came to be there, tell us.