The Popov Ash

The village this ash grew up in is gone. Popov was a German-speaking settlement in the Krusne Mountains until its people were expelled after the Second World War and the houses came down. The tree is still standing in the middle of it, roots spread over the stone foundations of one of them, which is the closest thing to a street plan the site has left. It is one of the largest ash trees in the country. Somebody measured 682 centimetres round with a 24 metre crown spread in 2004, and 737 more recently, so it is still putting on wood at over thirty metres tall. Sources give the age as about 200 years and none of them shows the working, so read it as the received figure. It spent decades unvisited and was found again in the early 1990s by a dentist from Karlovy Vary. Protection followed in 2003, and in 2002 more than 1,300 voters made it Czech Tree of the Year. Nobody has published a health assessment since 2004; the town's own walking guide says as much. Getting there is the walk. A green trail leaves Jachymov by the St Anne chapel and climbs through forest toward Marianska, three or four kilometres of uphill, and the tree stands in open ground where the village used to be.