The Eschersheimer Linde

Frankfurt bent a subway line rather than lose this lime. The U-Bahn under Eschersheimer Landstrasse curves slightly where the tree stands, the station beside it is called Lindenbaum, and so is the street. That is a lot of infrastructure named after one large-leaved lime. It went in at the end of the 17th century as a landmark on what was then an open road out of the city, and it was the smaller of a pair. Locals called it the Kleine Linde, because a bigger Grosse Linde stood nearby until a storm brought that one down in 1923. Around five metres round and some 25 metres tall, it has been a protected natural monument since 1937. Being a landmark on a road that turned into a city has cost it. The street was paved, the ground around it sealed, and the roots began to suffocate. It got tree surgery in 1955 and again in 1974, drainage in 1968, and by 1984 the city was pumping water and air into the soil around it to keep it alive. Frankfurt has now spent seventy years on life support for a tree it could have removed in an afternoon. It stands directly on the public street, so there is nothing to pay and nothing to enter. Get off at Lindenbaum station and it is right there, which is the whole point of the name.