The Oak of Maria-Eich-Straße

Maria-Eich-Strasse means Mary's Oak Street, and this is not that oak. The name belongs to the pilgrimage site at Planegg, out beyond the city boundary at the far end of the road, where by tradition a figure of the Virgin was set into a hollow oak in the early eighteenth century and a chapel grew up around the spot. Whether the street was named for that tree or simply for the place it leads to, the oak standing on it in Obermenzing today is a separate tree with a separate life, and the city protects it on its own account: a dominant tree that shapes the townscape, in the words of Munich's 2021 natural monument ordinance. Obermenzing is the green, villa-and-garden neighbour of Pasing in Munich's west, and a pedunculate oak here is a native on home ground rather than an import. Quercus robur is the species that carried central Europe: pigs were driven out to fatten on its acorns, ships and roof beams came out of its timber, and a single mature one supports more insect species than almost any other tree here. The register gives no age and no girth for it. Oaks reward a tape measure more than most. If you bring one, tell us what you find.