The Colchis Maple of Wilhelminapark

Four stops earlier on the same walking route stands a very different tree from the same era: a Cappadocian maple, named for the ancient region of Cappadocia in central Anatolia, though its natural range runs north into the Caucasus too, where it is sometimes called Colchis maple instead, after the kingdom Jason sailed for in the story of the Golden Fleece. It grows at Wilhelminapark's west entrance, on the footpath opposite house number 28, one of the park's original plantings from the 1880s according to the Dutch national monumental tree register. Acer cappadocicum keeps its leaves a plain green most of the year and then, in autumn, turns a uniform buttery yellow rather than the mixed reds and oranges of most maples, a colour show the park's own walking guide singles it out for. No girth is on record for this tree, and the register gives no basis for its planting decade beyond the record itself, so roughly a hundred and forty years old is an estimate rather than a measurement. Wilhelminapark is a national monument in its own right, laid out in 1898 in the informal English landscape style, and this maple was already an established tree by the time the park's more famous specimens matured around it. It stands free to visit, a short walk or tram ride from the city centre.