The Oriental Beech of Fælledparken

Nearly every beech you pass in a Danish wood is the common European kind. This one is not. It is an oriental beech, the beech of the Caucasus and northern Turkey, uncommon in Denmark, and it stands in Fælledparken, Copenhagen's big public park in Østerbro, just east of the Soppesøen pond. It is a large one. The Danish Tree Register measured it at 3.21 metres round and 25 metres tall, recorded it as living and healthy in August 2013, and rates it remarkable at municipal level. The register places it fifty metres north of the corner where Frederik V's Vej meets Edel Sauntes Allé, which in a park this size is the kind of direction you are glad to have. Telling it from a common beech takes a moment's attention. The oriental species generally has longer leaves with more pairs of veins, but from a few steps away the two look much alike, which is how an uncommon tree can stand in one of the city's busiest parks without most people noticing it. Two things we do not know. Nobody has recorded its age or when it was planted. And the most recent dated photograph anywhere near it is from March 2021, so its life since then rests on the register's 2013 visit and the absence of any news of a loss. If you find it, a dated photograph would settle the second question, and if you know its planting history, tell us the first.