Lukavický dub (Dub na Hrádku / Dub u Lukavické tvrze)
Somebody once tried to kill this oak with a shovel. Before the First World War the management of the Auersberg estate had dozens of cartloads of soil stripped away from around its roots, which is a slow and deniable way to finish a tree. It is still standing, and in 2024 the country voted it Czech Tree of the Year. It grows on the open ground of the Hrádek at Lukavice, the site of a fortress belonging to the local nobility, and it stood in that courtyard while the courtyard was still a courtyard. The trunk is more than seven metres round and the tree is 31 metres tall. Its age is estimated at nearly 800 years, which would put its first seasons somewhere in the thirteenth century; that is an estimate rather than a count, and the honest band around it is wide. Eight centuries of standing still has turned it into a habitat rather than a tree. It carries its own fungi, beetles and bats, most of which need wood that has been dead for a long time inside a tree that is still alive. It has been legally protected since 1990. The Czech nature conservation register names it dub letní, the summer oak, which is the pedunculate oak.
From people who stood here
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On the open ground of a former fortress (Hrádek), Lukavice
You can recognise it by standing alone on the open ground of the former Hradek fortress, 7 metres round and 31 metres tall. It stands at Lukavice, where a stripped-bare root zone once nearly killed it.
Village of Lukavice, Chrudim District
Winter shapeIn fruit
January and February, when the leaves are off and the whole frame of it is readable
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.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.