What is the oldest tree in Malsfeld?
The oldest tree mapped in the Malsfeld area is the larger of the Guided Lindens of Berndshausen, a pair of trained lime trees estimated at roughly 400 years old. It stands on an open square before the fortified church in Berndshausen, part of the municipality of Knüllwald, in Hessen's Schwalm-Eder district.
The Berndshausen pair, a summer lime and a winter lime, were grown into a wooden support frame over a sandstone table once used as a village court, a use recorded on cadastral maps from 1756 and a tithe map from 1778. That combination, a shaped lime tree standing over a stone table for judgment or assembly, is a recognised Hessian folk-tree type called a "geleitete Linde" or guided linden, and the Schwalm-Eder district still has a working cluster of them. Three others survive within a few kilometres: at Dagobertshausen, a group of three younger lindens before another fortified church; at Hilgershausen, a three-tiered lime trained into an octagonal frame with a seating area inside its own trunk, among the best documented guided lindens in Germany; and at Ostheim, a single hollow but vital lime on a sandstone common by the church. All four carry Naturdenkmal protection and sit on Hessen's Tanzlinden-Route. None has a train station nearby; a car is the practical way to see more than one in a visit.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.