The Wolfsweide Oak

Frankfurt protects this oak for its shape. The city's register says its crown begins unusually low and unfolds with remarkable symmetry, and the numbers back that up. It is 25 metres high and about 23 metres across, very nearly as wide as it is tall. It is a pedunculate oak, 3.58 metres round, entry 005 on the city's register of natural monuments. It stands exactly where Preungesheim runs out. A new housing area comes up to it on one side and open fields begin on the other, and the city describes the tree as the transition between the two. How long it has stood there, nobody has written down. The register gives no age, and we would rather leave the question open than guess one from the girth. If you know, tell us. There is a second gap, and we would rather say it plainly. The register page is current, but we have found no recent photograph or sighting of the oak itself, so for now the city's listing is our only word that it still stands. If you walk out to it, a photograph would settle the matter. The tree is free to visit, on the street called An der Wolfsweide. By our estimate it is 10 to 15 minutes on foot from the Preungesheim U5 stop. The pin is the register coordinate and approximate, so look for the low, even crown at the point where the houses stop and the fields start.