Of the protected oaks in this corner of the Tiergarten, this is the only one whose species belongs here. Within a couple of hundred metres stand a Lebanon oak from the Near East and a red oak from North America that Queen Elizabeth II planted in 1965. This one is Quercus robur, the pedunculate oak, the oak of the Brandenburg lowlands and of the Tiergarten itself, which began in the sixteenth century as the Electors' hunting forest. That does not make this tree a survivor of the forest, and nothing we have read says it is. The Tiergarten has been landscaped, relandscaped, and after 1945 largely cut down for fuel and replanted from 1949. Where this oak sits in that story, no source records. What the city did record is that it is worth keeping. Berlin made it Naturdenkmal 1-37/B on 2 March 1993, for its distinctiveness and its beauty, two reasons where many protected trees get one. A white elm listed the same day stands about 55 metres away. It is easy to tell from its famous neighbour. The Queen's oak has leaves ending in sharp bristles and acorns that sit tight to the twig; this one has rounded lobes, and acorns that hang on long stalks, which is what pedunculate means. No age or girth has been published. If you can measure the trunk, tell us.
catkins hang before the leaves are fully outacorns drop, and a good mast year buries the ground in themAutumn colour
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.
Grosser Tiergarten, east of the Englischer Garten, Berlin-Mitte You can recognise it by the rounded leaf lobes and acorns on long stalks, unlike the bristle-tipped leaves of the Queen's red oak 125 metres away. It stands east of the English Garden, about 55 metres from the protected white elm.
Free, open public park (Grosser Tiergarten), no gate; open at all hours.
S Bellevue roughly 400 m (about 6 minutes on foot).
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.