The Oak of Kaethe-Kollwitz-Strasse

A pedunculate oak on Kaethe-Kollwitz-Strasse, named for the Leipzig-connected printmaker and sculptor, carries Leipzig's Naturdenkmal protection under the same 1996 resolution as six other trees on this page. Its protected root zone runs 23 metres across, evidence of real size even without a recorded girth or age. Pedunculate oak is the common oak of northern European streets and parks, named for the short stalk, the peduncle, that carries its acorns clear of the twig, unlike the stalkless acorns of its close relative the sessile oak. Under German municipal protection it will now outlive the street around it by design rather than by accident. It stands about a kilometre northeast of the Karl-Heine-Strasse cluster, close enough to fold into the same outing. A pedunculate oak this size is also feeding a small ecosystem nobody sees from the pavement: the species supports more insect life than almost any other tree native to Britain and central Europe, from gall wasps that shape its acorns into hard, marble-sized growths to the moth caterpillars that keep every tit and warbler in the neighbourhood fed each spring.