The Wych Elm of Maximiliansplatz

Almost every elm this size that once grew in Munich is gone, and that absence is the entire reason this one is protected. Dutch elm disease, a fungus spread by bark beetles, swept through European elm populations across the 20th century in repeated waves, and Munich's own natural monument register notes plainly that wych elms of any real size have become rare across the whole city as a result, inner districts included. This one has survived on Maximiliansplatz, a roughly 300 by 60 metre park-like square laid out in the English-garden style along what was once the city's western fortification line, redesigned into a green public space after the walls came down in the 19th century. No source gives the tree an individual planting date or precise age, and its story here is less about a specific event than about what elm disease has quietly removed from cities across the continent. A species that was once an unremarkable street and park tree is now something Munich has to name and legally protect just to keep a mature specimen standing.