Krakow's register of natural monuments holds exactly one black walnut, and this is it. The city recorded 298 centimetres of trunk when it granted the tree protection in February 2017. The species belongs to the river valleys of eastern North America, not to a Polish hillside, and it is here because the park around it was built to show things off. Park Bednarskiego was laid out inside a worked-out limestone quarry from the 1890s, its terraces planted with what the city had little of: tulip tree, tree of heaven, this walnut. The garden section it stands in is called Szkola Twardowskiego, the school of Twardowski, after the sorcerer whose workshop local legend placed in the quarry basin. Black walnut makes its case in autumn. The fruit comes down in green husks the size of tennis balls, and the pulp inside stains hands, gloves and paving a brown that does not wash off. The whole park closed for rebuilding in January 2022 and reopened on 27 April 2023, the work written up as keeping the existing old growth standing. This tree came through it. Nobody has recorded its age. The park was planted in more than one campaign and no source ties this trunk to any of them. If you know when it went in, tell us.
In fruit
late September into October, when the green husks come down and stain everything they touch
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Park im. Wojciecha Bednarskiego, Podgorze, KrakowYou can recognise it by the trunk, 298 centimetres round, Krakow's only registered black walnut, and in autumn by green husks underneath that stain hands brown. It stands in Park Bednarskiego.
Free, open public park (Zarzad Zieleni Miejskiej), entrances on ul. Parkowa and ul. Zamoyskiego near Plac Niepodleglosci
Podgorze tram stops (Rondo Matecznego / Plac Bohaterow Getta area), roughly 10-15 min walk uphill into the park
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.