The Marialinde of Oisterwijk

The trunk you can put a hand on is younger than the tree. By the 19th century the Marialinde's original stem had rotted hollow, and the remedy of the period was to plant a spruce down inside the cavity, which is what was done here. The lime solved it differently. A root running down through its own hollow thickened, took over the job and became the trunk standing on De Lind today: the same individual tree, on its second stem, never replanted. Its age depends on which evidence you believe. The paper trail reaches 1388, when damage to the tree by fire was written down. Dendrologists reading the wood favour a planting somewhere between 1600 and 1700. Oisterwijk itself will tell you the lime is about a thousand years old, in the tone of a town that has been saying so for generations. Nobody has reconciled the three. What happened underneath it is better documented. A chapel holding a statue of Mary was set at the tree in the late 15th century and gave it the name it still carries. Justice was administered here. Cheese and eggs were sold in its shade on market days. In 2023 the country voted it Dutch Tree of the Year. It stands behind the old town hall on the central square, trunk fenced, a bench around it, free to walk up to, ten minutes from Oisterwijk station.