What is the oldest tree in Plauginiai Forest?
Plauginiai Forest's mapped trees are the Beautiful Oak of Plauginiai Forest (Grazusis azuolas), a pedunculate oak about 5.8 metres round and 32 to 33 metres tall, reached by a purpose-built interpretive trail inside a botanical-zoological reserve of Dubysa Regional Park, and the Mikalojaus Dauksa Oak, about 19 kilometres away on a stream slope in Betygala.
The state forest service assessed the oak on 8 June 2017 and recorded 32 metres of height, 5.8 metres of girth at chest height and a condition of excellent. A local news report the following spring gave 5.8 metres and 33 metres, matching the figures carved into a wooden acorn marker at the foot of the trunk. Back in 1985 the figures were 28 metres and a diameter of 1.4 metres, so the tree has put on both height and thickness since somebody last got out the tape. It has been a nature monument since 1960 and was raised to republic-level significance in 1985, when the state decided this particular oak was worth pointing traffic at: it is signposted by name, Grazusis azuolas, the Beautiful Oak, from the public highway three and a half kilometres out. What waits at the end of the gravel road is a 400-metre interpretive trail built for one tree, with carved oak sculptures along it and a rest area with a pavilion and a fireplace. Its age is given as about 300 years by every source that mentions one, the wooden acorn included, and none of them says where the number comes from.
One of Plauginiai Forest's trees also appears in The Autumn Harvest, a themed collection spanning several cities.