The Red Oak of Hartmannshofen

An American red oak thick enough to be one of Munich's largest hides behind a tennis club, a hundred metres north of the Fasanerie restaurant in Hartmannshofer Park, with no sign anywhere pointing to it. The city designated it a natural monument in 2021, citing simply that it is a very large red oak, rare anywhere inside Munich, after a resident first applied for its protection back in 2006. The paperwork took fifteen years to catch up with the tree. Quercus rubra is native to eastern North America and was planted across German parks and forests from the 18th century on, valued for its fast growth and brilliant autumn colour rather than for any native pedigree. This one has done more with those decades than almost any other red oak in the city: 4.2 metres round at the base and about 30 metres tall, standing in a stretch of forest that has belonged to the Free State of Bavaria rather than the city since well before the park itself existed. A local tree enthusiast who pushed for its protection estimates it at around 250 years old, though nobody has confirmed that with a core sample or a planting record. The park itself, the Hartmannshofer Wald, only became a public park in the 1960s. Before that it was simply forest, which may be exactly how this one tree got old enough to matter.