The Border Oak at Berger Warte

Citizen surveyors counted 51 old oaks around Enkheim and Bergen in 2016. This is the only one of them designated a natural monument, and its near twin stands unmarked on the other side of the road. The pair flank the B521 where it leaves the Vilbeler Wald, about 300 metres north-west of the old Jewish cemetery of Bergen. The surveyors put a tape round both at chest height and got 4.00 and 4.10 metres, without saying which is which. Their rule of thumb for forest oaks turns that girth into a germination date around 1700: an estimate from size, not a count of rings, so call it somewhere between 250 and 330 years. Senckenberg staff told the Frankfurter Neue Presse that oaks this old are otherwise known only in the Schwanheim forest. Five metres away stands a boundary stone carved GH, for the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The survey suggests that could make this an old border oak. It is a suggestion, not a finding. The protection comes from the Wetteraukreis, because the tree stands just inside Bad Vilbel, on Frankfurt's city line. Its register entry, natural monument 440.142, is named for the Seckbacher Busch, as is the red plaque on the tree, but no shared coordinate ties the register to the surveyors' oak, so the match is very likely rather than proven. Nobody says whether it is pedunculate or sessile; if you can tell, tell us. The latest dated photograph is from 2018.