What is the oldest tree in Zaanstad?
Zaanstad's oldest verified tree is a copper beech in the burial ground off the Zuiddijk in Zaandam, roughly 140 years old by the national register's planting band, though the register's own note disputes that figure and may make the tree younger. It stands in the middle of the cemetery grounds, one of what was once a larger set of copper beeches planted along the avenues there.
The age comes from the national monumental-trees register, and its own file cannot agree with itself: the register's planting band puts the beech in the 1880s, while a separate note says the cemetery itself only dates from the early twentieth century and implies the tree is younger. Neither figure has been reconciled, so the honest age is a range rather than a single date, and it may run either way. The register also records that the beech was planted as one of a set: several more copper beeches once lined the burial ground's avenues, and five of them still stand further east under their own register entries, so this tree has close relatives within walking distance. Copper beech is a colour mutation of the ordinary green beech, its purple pigment masking the chlorophyll beneath, and it grows a shade slower than a green tree as a result, which is why almost every mature specimen exists because somebody deliberately grafted and planted one. The cemetery sits off the Zuiddijk in Zaandam and stays open to the public in daylight.
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