The Weeping Beech of the Schwanenbrücke

Munich protects this beech partly because people are fond of it. The reason entered in the city's natural monument ordinance is that it is a dominant tree in a historic garden with besondere Bedeutung für Münchner Bürger, particular significance for the citizens of Munich, which is a legal document recording public affection as grounds for protection. That is rarer than it sounds; most entries on the same list argue from size, rarity or townscape effect. The tree stands just south of the Schwanenbrücke, the swan bridge over the canal that runs north through the park. A weeping beech grows nothing like the wild form it was bred from: instead of a clean grey column carrying a high crown, the limbs arch outward and then fall, so the branches hang to the ground and the whole tree closes around a hollow space at its centre. Walking under one is the point of it, and generations of Munich children have done exactly that here. Its age is not recorded anywhere. The cultivar has only been in general garden circulation since the early nineteenth century, and the surrounding park was landscaped between 1799 and 1823, which brackets it loosely and honestly without pretending to a date.