The Beech of the Wilhelmsgymnasium

The school across this green space has been teaching since 1559, which makes it the oldest in Munich. The beech below it carries no recorded date of any kind, and the city protects it anyway. Munich's 2021 natural monument ordinance enters it as a mighty, dominant tree, effective in the streetscape, and that is the entire reasoning. Fagus sylvatica behaves badly in cities, which is why a full grown one in the Lehel is worth the detour. It wants deep, moist, well drained ground, it resents compacted soil, and its bark is thin and smooth enough to scald in full sun where a rough barked oak would shrug. Given room it becomes the most dominant broadleaf in central Europe: the shade under a mature beech is close to total, almost nothing germinates in it, and the floor stays bare leaf litter year after year. That is how the species took most of the continent's forests. The Wilhelmsgymnasium moved into its building on the corner in 1877, a Jesuit foundation by then three centuries into its second life as a state school. The green strip on its south side is the sort of leftover municipal ground that usually holds bins and a bike rack. No age is on record. The ordinance lists reasons for protection and carries no column for dates or dimensions, and nothing else has measured this tree.