What is the oldest tree in Bad Blumau?
The oldest tree near Bad Blumau is the oak of Bierbaum an der Safen, at the end of the Eichenweg toward Loimeth. A dendrological register reads its girth at 500 to 600 years; local tradition claims closer to 1,000, with a planting date of around 1020, though no source names a method behind that figure. Its trunk measures 8.75 metres round and its crown reaches 30 metres. It stands on a private plot but is treated as a public attraction, with a marked trail, information signage and guided tours.
The two ages in circulation come from different kinds of evidence and neither has been reconciled. Baumkunde.de, a German dendrological register, measured the tree in 2018 and reads its girth and growth pattern as 500 to 600 years, noting this contradicts the popular name. Local reporting instead states flatly that experts confirm roughly 1,000 years and repeats a planting date of around 1020, without naming who measured it or how. Both figures are recorded here rather than one picked as correct. The tree's recent history is better documented. Lightning struck it sometime in the 1970s, and whoever repaired the wound packed the hollow with concrete, a well-meant fix that traps moisture and speeds decay rather than stopping it. In 1989 the tree surgeon Manfred Saller redid the job properly, funded by a donation from the Austrian businesswoman Heidi Horten, and the tree was recorded in visibly vital condition at its most recent 2018 survey. It grows on a private plot in Bierbaum, a hamlet in the municipality of Bad Blumau, but the owners have built a public attraction around it: a marked trail, a sign, and guided tours that bring thousands of visitors a year.
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