Five stems, one tree, and the shape of an open hand. The Fünffingerlinde grew its trunks together over the centuries into a form people read as a palm with fingers, one lower branch pushed forward as the thumb, and it has been a protected natural monument since 1938 on the strength of that shape rather than its size. The story attached to it is a hanging. A wanderer was executed nearby for something he had not done, and the hand in the tree is said to stand for his innocence, so that nobody could tidy the case away. That is regional legend rather than record, and it is what brings most people down the track. The measurements are modest and the growth curve is honest. Just under 4 metres round in 1932, 4.90 metres when baumkunde measured it on 21 June 2020: 90 centimetres in 88 years. The estimate is 250 to 300 years, young beside the court limes of central Germany and no less odd to stand beneath. It grows in a clearing in the Riesewohld forest near Odderade, with benches set around it and marked hiking trails leading in. The same 2020 survey recorded its health as vital. Free, open all year, a few minutes' drive from Albersdorf and then a walk from the forest car park.
In bloom
June to July, when it flowers
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
A clearing in the Riesewohld forest, about 500m south of Quellental and the A23 motorway, near Odderade, Kreis Dithmarschen, Schleswig-HolsteinYou can recognise it by its five stems fused into the shape of an open hand, one lower branch forming a thumb. It stands alone in a clearing in the Riesewohld forest, with benches set around it.
Free, open year-round. Benches are placed around the tree and marked hiking trails lead to the clearing in the Riesewohld forest.
Rural forest location a few minutes' drive from Albersdorf; no rail or bus stop at the site itself. Reached on foot from a forest car park, not a public-transport day trip.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.