The Holm Oak of Trompenburg

In 1928 Trompenburg lost roughly 400 elms to Dutch elm disease, and out of that clearing grew one of the best oak collections in Europe. This holm oak was already here when the saws came. The national register puts its planting between 1910 and 1920, which makes it about 110 years old and older than the arboretum it now stands in. It is also the odd one out. A holm oak belongs to the Mediterranean, keeps its dark leathery leaves all winter, and looks nothing like the deciduous oaks the garden is famous for. Trompenburg holds the Dutch National Plant Collection of Quercus, and named oaks such as 'Pondaim' and the 'East Column' and 'West Column' forms of Quercus x rosacea were raised here. This evergreen came before all of that. The garden itself is older still. James Smith laid it out from 1820 on the Honingerdijk, the Zochers, father and son, reworked the western half around 1870, and James van Hoey Smith turned it into an arboretum after the elms fell. His son Dick built the collection up, and the gates opened to the public in 1958. One honest caveat: the register dates this tree, but the garden's own history does not single it out, and no second source we found names this individual oak. If you know more about it, tell us. It is a separate stop from Rotterdam's other trees, about three kilometres away, with its own ticket.