Schoolchildren planted this oak on 10 November 1883, Martin Luther's 400th birthday, and it has run the village square ever since. The pupils came from the school at Grossluga, whose district took in the little village of Kleinluga, and they set it in the middle of the Teichplatz, near the pond. A memorial stone went in front of it. The young oak was planted in the German Empire and has stood through every state that followed. It is now about 20 metres tall, with a crown about 22 metres across and a trunk 4.10 metres round, by the city's own nature-protection records. Nothing else on the square comes close: the farmsteads keep to its edges and the oak takes the middle. In 1998 and 1999 the square was redesigned around it and the memorial stone was renewed. On 10 June 1999 the city council made the tree natural monument ND 88, with a protected zone reaching three metres beyond the edge of its crown and never less than 15 metres from the trunk. Together with its stone it is also a listed heritage monument, so the Luther Oak is protected twice: once as nature, once as history. It stands about 10 km south-east of Dresden's old town. Another village-square oak, at Oberpoyritz about 5 km to the north-east, was protected by the same council on the same day.
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.
Teichplatz (village square), between Teichplatz 8 and 9, KleinlugaYou can recognise it as the only big oak in the middle of the Teichplatz, with a granite memorial stone at its foot and natural-monument plaques. It stands between Teichplatz 8 and 9, near the pond.
Free; on the open village square (Teichplatz) with a pond nearby, public ground. Memorial stone and protection plaques at the tree. Farmsteads border the square, the tree itself is on the square plot (Flurstueck 2).
Kleinluga, in the south-east of Dresden, about 10 km from the Altstadt. We have not checked the bus connection; use the VVO journey planner.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
