The Copper Beeches of the Natural History Museum Forecourt
The square in front of Berlin's natural history museum holds five protected trees, and the two that give the group its name are copper beeches, one off each wing of the building. The museum charges for what is inside. The square, and everything growing on it, is free. Berlin's register lists them one by one. Naturdenkmal 1-75/B-1, designated on 2 March 1993, is the copper beech by the east wing, and it is where our pin stands. Its partner, 1-75/B-2, is by the west wing, about 70 metres across. A beech, 1-76/B, stands by the east wing too, another protected tree, 1-77/B, by the west, and an oak, 1-78/B, out on the square itself. The register gives the east-wing copper beech its place for beauty and for regional heritage. We have mapped them as one stop rather than five, because that is how you will meet them: a single forecourt, all within about a hundred metres, a minute from the U-Bahn. Copper beeches are worth seeing through the year. Their leaves open purple in spring, darken through the summer and turn copper before they fall, so the pair looks different with every visit. No source gives an age, girth or height for any of the five. If you have measured one, tell us which, and what it came to.
beech mast, small triangular nuts in bristly husksleaves open purple in spring, darken through summer and turn copper before they fall
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.
Invalidenstrasse 43, square in front of the Museum fuer Naturkunde You can recognise them by their dark purple leaves, one copper beech beside each wing of the Museum für Naturkunde. They stand on the forecourt at Invalidenstrasse 43; our pin marks the one by the east wing.
Free; public square in front of the museum (museum entry is paid, the square is not).
U6 Naturkundemuseum, 1 min walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.