The Bergstrasse Crimean Linden

A Crimean linden is a garden hybrid. Tilia x euchlora appeared in cultivation around 1860, a cross of the small-leaved linden with a Caucasian relative, and it was planted across Europe for one reason: its leaves are glossy dark green and it shrugs off city air better than its parents. That is the tree standing on the Bergstrasse in Neuenheim, and Heidelberg has protected it as a natural monument since 4 August 1986. Which makes the designation the interesting part. Registers usually protect trees for being old, and a hybrid that first appeared around 1860 gives no specimen anywhere much more than a century and a half to work with. Something about this particular specimen persuaded the state to list it, and the register does not say what: it gives the name, Krimlinde Bergstrasse, the date and the coordinate, and then nothing at all. No age, no girth, no description. So this is a tree to go and judge for yourself, on a quiet residential street on the north side of the Neckar, and to tell us about. How thick is it? How tall? The species usually tops out around 15 to 18 metres, and if this one is well past that you are looking at one of the larger ones anywhere. Our pin is the register's coordinate rather than a fix at the trunk, so expect the right stretch of pavement rather than the exact spot. A second monument, two cypresses, sits at almost the same point.