Graz's city government keeps a live register of protected trees, and ten ship here across two clusters: eight in the city centre, from a Schlossberg maple to a Volksgarten trio to two Panoramagasse oaks of very different girth, and two more inside Schlosspark Eggenberg, a UNESCO World Heritage palace park on the western edge, a paid-entry pine and copper beech. Most carry no recorded age, an honest gap stated rather than guessed past.
0 of 10 visited in Graz
1
The Schlossberg Field Maple
Field Maple (Acer campestre) · Innere Stadt (Schlossberg hill park)
Graz keeps a live public register of its protected trees, and this field maple has held a place on it since the year 2000, growing on the wooded hill above the old town where a fortress once stood and a bell tower still does. Field maples rarely get singled out anywhere: they are the hedgerow tree, the one that fills gaps between grander species rather than anchoring a park on its own. This one earned protection anyway, on a hill whose beech, hornbeam and ash have been managed as a landscape park for centuries around the ruins at its summit. Austria's official record and Graz's own city register agree on the exact spot to within three metres, though neither has ever measured its girth or put a number on its age, an honest gap on an otherwise well documented tree. The Schlossberg itself needs no introduction to anyone who has visited Graz, its clock tower visible across the whole city, and the climb up past this maple is free at any hour, on foot or by the paid funicular that saves the legs.
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Photo: Gerdsch (CC BY-SA 3.0 at)
2
The Volksgarten Oak
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · Lend (Volksgarten park)
Three of Graz's officially protected trees stand inside one small park, and this oak is the first of them, rooted near the Muhlgasse side of the Volksgarten. The park's own history records a planted row of oaks running roughly north to south through its centre, seventy to a hundred years old, but no source confirms this particular designated tree is part of that row rather than a separate planting nearby, so the two facts stay separate here rather than joined into a tidier story that nobody actually stated. What both the city's live tree register and Wikipedia's independent list agree on is the spot itself, within two metres of each other, and the protection: this pedunculate oak has held Naturdenkmal status since May 2000. The Volksgarten covers four and a half hectares open on every side, no gate and no fee, a five minute walk from Graz's main station. Two more protected planes grow within a hundred and seventy metres of this oak, making the park itself worth the whole visit rather than a single stop.
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3
The Volksgarten Plane of Muhlgasse
London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia) · Lend (Volksgarten park)
A dated photograph on Wikimedia Commons, filed under this exact tree's own protection number, shows this plane still standing in the Volksgarten years after its formal designation, one of the small proofs this project prefers over a bare database record. It is a London Plane, the hybrid city planners across Europe reach for when they want a tree that shrugs off pollution and poor soil, and this one has done the job here since the year 2000. It grows a few paces from a protected oak and a second protected plane, the three of them forming Graz's tightest cluster of designated trees, all reachable inside one small public park. Neither source gives an age or a trunk measurement, an honest gap on a tree old enough to have earned legal protection on its own merits. The Volksgarten opens on every side with no fee and no closing time, a five minute walk from Graz's main railway station.
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4
The Volksgarten Plane of Volksgartenstrasse
London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia) · Lend (Volksgarten park)
Registers occasionally list the same tree twice under two addresses, a real problem elsewhere on this site, and this plane is a genuine check against exactly that mistake: it stands on a separate legal plot from the park's other two designated trees, a hundred and seventy metres away, protected four months later in a separate 2000 decision. Not a duplicate, a third tree completing the Volksgarten's own small collection of protected specimens. It grows near the Volksgartenstrasse entrance rather than the Muhlgasse side where its two neighbours stand, which means a visitor can enter the park from either street and find a protected tree within a few steps. Graz's city register and Wikipedia's independent list place it within three metres of each other. As with its neighbours, nobody has published an age or a trunk measurement, which any reader with a tape measure could fix in the time it takes to walk the park end to end.
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5
The Augarten Field Maple
Field Maple (Acer campestre) · at least 70 years · Jakomini, at the eastern edge of the Augarten park
This field maple carries an unusually solid floor under its age. Its formal Naturdenkmal designation dates to 1979, but Wikipedia's own record cites an earlier source, a 1956 survey of Graz's planted broadleaf trees by F. Hanselmayer, which already listed this exact maple as a tree worth protecting, decades before the legal designation caught up. That gives a hard floor of at least seventy years old as of today, derived from a dated citation rather than a guess, with no upper bound stated because nothing sources one. It grows at the eastern edge of the Augarten, a public park in Jakomini, beside a heritage bathhouse building that now houses the Museum der Wahrnehmung. Whether the tree's exact footing sits on the museum's own grounds or on the adjoining public park land was not confirmed by any source read this pass, which is why this entry is flagged rather than stated with full confidence, an honest narrow gap on an otherwise well anchored tree.
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6
The Schillerplatz Plane
London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia) · St. Leonhard (Schillerplatz square)
A photograph taken on the second of May, 2014, and filed on Wikimedia Commons under this tree's own protection number, is the kind of small dated proof this project values: it shows the tree alive and identifiable twelve years ago, a data point independent of both the city's live register and Wikipedia's own list, which agree with each other on the exact spot to within two metres. The plane has held its Naturdenkmal status since September 1990, growing on Schillerplatz, an ordinary public square in the St. Leonhard district rather than a landscaped park, the kind of protected tree that people cross without a second glance because nothing marks it out from the street furniture around it. No age or trunk measurement has ever been published for it, which is true of most of Graz's protected trees and no reason to hold this one back: it stands on open public ground, reachable by tram or bus directly to the square, free at any hour.
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7
The Panoramagasse Oak (No. 54)
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · Geidorf (Panoramagasse, Ruckerlberg hillside)
Two pedunculate oaks stand forty metres apart on the same hillside street, protected on the exact same day in July 1979, and this is the smaller of the pair: a trunk measured at 2.80 metres round in a 2015 field survey, against 4.90 metres for its neighbour up the road. No published growth-rate figure for this species was found and verified this pass, so that girth is not converted into an age here rather than turned into a guess dressed up as a calculation. The register lists the tree opposite house number 54 on Panoramagasse, a steep street on the Ruckerlberg hillside in Geidorf that earns its name honestly, climbing above the city with views back over the rooftops. 'Gegenuber', opposite, is the register's own word for the tree's position: on the public verge across from the house, not inside anyone's private garden. Reachable by bus toward Ruckerlberggurtel and a walk up the hill, with its larger neighbour barely a minute further on.
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8
The Panoramagasse Oak (No. 56)
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · Geidorf (Panoramagasse, Ruckerlberg hillside)
This oak and its neighbour forty metres down the hill were protected on the same day in July 1979, near-identical paperwork for two trees that turned out nothing alike: a 2015 field survey measured this one at 4.90 metres round, nearly double its neighbour's 2.80 metres, despite an address and a protection date that otherwise read like a matched pair. Nothing in either source explains the gap, whether one was planted decades before the other or simply grew faster on better ground, so this page states the measurement rather than guessing at a reason. It stands opposite house number 56 on Panoramagasse, a hillside street in Geidorf on the Ruckerlberg slope, on the public verge rather than inside any private plot, per the register's own wording. No published age exists for it and none is invented here; a girth this size on an oak usually means real age, but converting one into the other needs a cited growth-rate figure this pass did not have in hand, so the number stays a girth rather than becoming a guess.
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9
The Eggenberg Weymouth Pine
Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) · Eggenberg (Schlosspark Eggenberg, within the palace grounds)
A field measurement from October 2016, cited by Wikipedia's own list of Graz's protected trees, gives this Eastern White Pine a trunk 3.70 metres round and a height of about 27 metres, figures the city's live register independently confirms exist at the same spot within three metres. It is one of ten designated trees planted together at the entrance to Schlosspark Eggenberg, five plane trees and four more Weymouth pines among them, but this is the only one with its own measurement on record, which is why it stands here alone rather than as part of a group entry: the rest read as one avenue rather than nine separate things worth stopping at individually. Pinus strobus is native to eastern North America, and this specimen has grown large enough on Austrian soil to earn legal protection in its own right, cited in 1979. Schloss Eggenberg is a UNESCO World Heritage palace on the western edge of the city, its park entered on a paid ticket rather than freely, the one exception on this page to Graz's otherwise open-access trees. A copper beech, also protected, grows fifty seven metres away in the same park, making the walk from the gate worth two trees rather than one.
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Photo: Kulac (CC BY-SA 3.0 at)
10
The Eggenberg Copper Beech
Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea') · Eggenberg (Schlosspark Eggenberg, within the palace grounds)
Wikipedia's list places this copper beech at Eggenberger Allee 90 with a set of coordinates that match, to six decimal places, the GPS tag on a photograph taken here in June 2014 and filed on Wikimedia Commons under the tree's own protection number. Two facts agreeing that precisely is about as solid as a location gets on this page, even though the tree carries a smaller shadow of documentation than most of its neighbours: it sits in Austria's national monument register rather than the City of Graz's own separately maintained list, which does not carry it at all, and nobody has photographed or measured it since that one 2014 image. Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' is a cultivar bred for its dark red foliage rather than a wild variant, planted widely across European parks precisely for that colour, and this one earned formal protection in 1979 regardless of the missing girth and age figures. It grows inside Schlosspark Eggenberg, the grounds of a UNESCO World Heritage palace on the city's western edge, fifty seven metres from a protected Weymouth pine that shares its address and its 1979 designation date, reachable on the same paid ticket into the park.
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