The Walnut on the Nidda Oxbow

In 1910 somebody planted a walnut beside the Nidda in Heddernheim. A little over a century later it stands 23 metres tall and 4.36 metres round, and its crown hangs so low that the leaves reach almost to the ground. Those figures come from Frankfurt's register of natural monuments, where the tree is entry 009. The planting year is the city's own, so for once the age is a date rather than a guess, about 115 years. Walnuts are quick growers, which is how a tree that young has put on a trunk of that size. The city's description is warmer than registers usually allow themselves. It calls the walnut exceptionally beautiful and imposing, and singles out the mighty crown that shades the path beneath it. That path is the point of the visit. You do not admire this tree from behind a fence; you walk under it. It has stood here through both world wars, on the bank of an Altarm, an old arm of the Nidda that the river's main channel no longer runs through. The path is free and open at all times. By our estimate the walk from Heddernheim U-Bahn station (U1, U2, U3) takes about 15 minutes, so check the route on a map before you set out. The pin is the register coordinate and only approximate, but a walnut whose leaves nearly touch the ground is not an easy tree to walk past.