The Oak of Bambesch

Luxembourg's register offers half a dozen grounds for protecting a tree, and this oak was listed on exactly one of them: its shape. Not its place in the landscape, not its biology, not its dendrology, not history and not commemoration. Somebody stood in front of it, decided the form of the thing was worth keeping, and wrote down a number. The number is 136 in the Grand Ducal regulation of 31 January 2025, and it is close to everything the public record holds. No age, no girth, no height, and no photograph anywhere we have looked, which is as thin as it gets here and arguably makes this the most interesting entry on the list. Nobody has told you what to expect. It is also the only tree here that is properly out of town. The Bambesch is a public forest above Rollingergrund, twenty to twenty-five minutes from the centre by bus and then on foot, and it is a large wood. Our pin is the register's own point, which is forest-level rather than trunk-level, so plan on hunting for it. If you find it, photograph it. As far as we can tell, that would be the first picture of this tree anywhere.