The Moravian Square Oak

Brno put a price on this oak before it protected it: more than 600,000 Kčs, the figure on record when the city's national committee declared it a memorial tree on 27 June 1985, alongside two other trees in the same park. The reason given was plain enough. It was the strongest tree there, and a solitary specimen worth keeping. The park is a piece of demolition. Brno pulled down its city walls between 1809 and 1859 and laid a ring of green where the fortifications had run, and Moravské náměstí is one link in that ring. At roughly 150 years, the oak is about as old as the planting around it. Today it stands just under 30 metres, with a trunk of 435 to 440 centimetres depending on which year you take the tape from: the city's figure and the national register's differ by five centimetres and a few seasons of growth, not by any real disagreement. Around 2005 arborists took out its dead wood, and it has been reported in good health since. Czech signs call it Dub letní na Moravském náměstí. Turistika.cz calls it the most beautiful memorial oak in Brno, which is a strong claim in a park that holds a second protected oak 130 metres down the grass.