On 2 June 2018 a storm tore off one of this elm's three great limbs, and the tree kept going, having already survived the Dutch elm disease that killed more than three quarters of Europe's elms in the 20th century. The Elm of Căpeni, Köpec in Hungarian, won Romania's Tree of the Year in 2011 with 13,096 votes and came second in Europe in 2012. It stands in a field beside a stream bridge in the Szekler country of Transylvania, 7.3 metres round and roughly 300 years old.
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The Elm Tree of Căpeni
Field Elm (Ulmus minor) · roughly 300 years · North of Căpeni (Köpec), Baraolt Depression
On 2 June 2018 a storm tore off one of this elm's three great limbs, and the tree kept going. It had already survived something far worse: the Dutch elm disease that killed more than three quarters of Europe's elms in the 20th century, spread by bark beetles.
The Elm of Căpeni, Köpec in Hungarian, won Romania's Tree of the Year in 2011 with 13,096 votes and came second in Europe in 2012 with 9,812. It stands in a field beside the bridge over the Baraolt stream, just north of the village and off road DJ131, in the Szekler country of Transylvania. It is over 35 metres tall and 7.3 metres round, and a 2011 Romanian news report puts its planting in the early 18th century, which makes it roughly 300 years old.
It has also come through the floods and fires of the Baraolt stream, though no source dates them. The damage from 2018 is not hidden: the broken limb was cut back and the wound sealed with a rubbery coating, and you can see it.
A travel writer who visited in September 2023 found a mowed path of about a hundred metres leading from the road through the field to the trunk, and an information panel with the tree's details, and suggested a stop of ten to fifteen minutes. That is about right for the tree, and a little short for the thought that a field elm this size is something most of Europe no longer has.
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