One of the tallest trees in Amsterdam stands on the edge of a bicycle path, not in a forest.
Canadian Poplar
The oldest poplar in the Netherlands grows behind a concert hall in Arnhem, on the last stretch of moat the city never filled in, and it is not supposed to have got this far. This page maps every canadian poplar on the site, 11 so far across 9 cities.
Canadian poplar is a hybrid of Europe's black poplar and an American cottonwood, bred for timber and shelter belts, fast, soft and finished within decades rather than centuries. Arnhem's has stood since somewhere between 1750 and 1800. The other three are dated in decades, and what makes them worth the walk is what happened around them. Warsaw's was already mature when the ground it stands on became a transit camp in 1944. Den Bosch's went in around 1941, under occupation, and was a young tree when the fighting reached the city. Antwerp's is simply enormous, 35 metres with six metres of clear trunk before the crown starts.
Amsterdam
Every year Amsterdam inspects this poplar and decides whether it can stay another one.
Hardly anyone lets a Canadian poplar reach this age.
Warsaw
Photo: Via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A mass grave was reportedly dug beneath this tree in August 1944, according to testimony from survivors of the transit camp that once stood around it.
Arnhem
The Netherlands' oldest poplar grows behind a concert hall, on the last stretch of canal Arnhem never filled in.
Den Bosch
If the register's count holds, this poplar was planted around 1941, which puts it in the ground under German occupation and makes it a young tree when the fighting for the city came through in the...
Antwerp
Photo: Geert Van der Linden / Flanders Immovable Heritage Agency (CC BY 4.0)
At 35 metres, this Canadian poplar is among the tallest trees recorded anywhere in Antwerp, its trunk clear of branches for a full 6 metres before the crown even begins, a shape that comes from gro...
Deventer
The giant of De Worp is called that because of its size, and its size is what nearly got its age wrong.
Leeuwarden
The trunk is the reason to come.
Tilburg
Poplars are not supposed to get this old, which is the entire reason to go and look at this one.
Roosendaal
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.
Explore by city: Amsterdam · Rome · Milan · Lisbon · Barcelona · Singapore · Brisbane · Florence · Palermo · Madrid · Naples · Prague · Vienna · Seville · Paris · Copenhagen · Malaga · London · Bath · Venice · Brussels · Nijmegen · Valencia · Palma de Mallorca · Dublin · Fukuoka · Seoul · Bologna · Alicante · Porto · Krakow · The Hague · Montreal · Edinburgh · New York · Toronto · Groningen · Leiden · Geneva · Reykjavik · Tokyo · Dubrovnik · Cagliari · Cambridge · Padua · Sintra · Berlin · Washington DC · Trieste · Guimaraes · Kyoto · Munich · Vilnius · Utrecht · Oslo · Turin · Dresden · Boston · Sorrento · Bristol · Cordoba · Potsdam · Athens · Chicago · Lyon · Cork · Budapest · Buenos Aires · Quebec City · Helsinki · Warsaw · Caserta · Maastricht · Glasgow · Seattle · Haarlem · Tallinn · Lucca · Nice · Sydney · Zurich · Cadiz · York · Setubal · Istanbul · Verona · Delft · Arnhem · Catania · Braga · Los Angeles · Rotterdam · Hong Kong · Oahu · Bari · Genoa · Mexico City · Leipzig · Oxford · Brno · Poznan · Stockholm · New Orleans · Den Bosch · Bilbao · Split · Zaragoza · Ljubljana · Breda · Osaka · Belgrade · Sofia · Granada · Melbourne · Ferrara · Wroclaw · Bangkok · Bucharest · Thessaloniki · Parma · Gdansk · Antwerp · Alkmaar · Amersfoort · Apeldoorn · Baarn · Bucaco · Deventer · Dordrecht · Ede · Eindhoven · Emmen · Enschede · Helmond · Leeuwarden · Nara · Tilburg · Venlo · Zwolle · Aarhus · Assen · Austin · Bergamo · Bordeaux · Bratislava · Cologne · Como · Crete · Cyprus · Dallas · Frankfurt · Graz · Haarlemmermeer · Hawaii · Heerlen · Hilo · Hilversum · Hobart · Hoorn · Houston · Las Vegas · Madeira · Nuremberg · Oss · Ottawa · Perth · Perugia · Portland · Roosendaal · Sardinia · Sittard-Geleen · Strasbourg · Tenerife · Toulouse · Trento · Zaanstad · or browse all species.