Berlin's register and the photographer who has followed this oak through every season cannot agree on what it is. The register, which protects it as Naturdenkmal 1-95/B, calls it a pedunculate oak. That photographer, posting winter and summer pictures to Wikimedia Commons since 2024 and citing the city's own tree-cadastre number 17-229, calls it a sessile oak. Both are native here and they hybridise freely, so this is not a careless mistake on either side. It is a genuinely awkward question. You can try to settle it yourself. A pedunculate oak hangs its acorns on long stalks and holds its leaves almost stalkless, with two small ear-like lobes where the leaf meets the twig. A sessile oak does the reverse: acorns sitting tight to the twig, leaves on a clear stalk and tapering at the base. Come in autumn and look at both. The tree stands between the Bellevueallee and the Strasse des 17. Juni, the broad avenue named for the East German uprising of 17 June 1953, when workers across the GDR struck and Soviet tanks put them down. Schloss Bellevue, the German president's residence, is a few minutes away. The register gives no age, girth or height. Tell us which oak you think it is, and if you can, how far round the trunk.
Grosser Tiergarten, between Bellevueallee and Strasse des 17. Juni You can recognise it as an oak whose species is disputed, so check whether the acorns hang on stalks. It stands between the Bellevueallee and the Strasse des 17. Juni, about ten minutes on foot from S Bellevue.
Free; Grosser Tiergarten is a public park open at all hours.
S Bellevue about 10 min walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.