The Hornbeam of Moesgård

The surveyor who measured this hornbeam filed a small complaint along with the numbers: a fine tree, but it stands a little in the shade of some plane trees. He recorded it in March 2022 at 19 metres tall and 2.69 metres round, alive and healthy, and rated it regionally noteworthy. Nineteen metres is a lot of hornbeam. The species usually reads as a hedge or a clipped avenue, because that is what people do to it: it takes cutting better than almost anything and comes back denser each time. Left alone it makes a tall tree with a fluted, muscled trunk that looks poured rather than grown, and wood so hard that Europe used it for cogwheels, mill gearing and butchers' blocks until metal took the work over. The Danish name, avnbøg, files it with the beeches it is not related to. It stands on the north side of the eastern end of Moesgård's park, the half laid out as a landscape garden with its trees set clear of one another. Only the tree register carries it, with a GPS position and a photograph, and no source anywhere gives it an age. Take the shade note as a tip: come when the sun is low and behind you, and the trunk does the work.