The Chuikov Oak

This oak split itself into a small crowd. At 170 centimetres up, the trunk divides into two parallel stems, and one of those splits again higher still, a rare growth habit that leaves three separate crowns rising from a single 421-centimetre base. It has stood near the Citadel's Garrison Cemetery since around 1840, by the register's estimate, making it the oldest protected tree inside the park by a wide margin. Poznan named it for Vasily Chuikov, the Soviet general who commanded the 8th Guards Army during the brutal February 1945 battle for the fortress, an unusual honour to find growing in a Polish city park. The oak predates the battle by more than a century and the general's own role in it by longer still; it was already mature when the fort it now shades was an active Prussian stronghold. Designated a natural monument on 10 June 1979, this is the oldest protection of any tree on this page, decades before Poland's newer wave of monumental-tree designations. Arborists describe it in good health, with only minor dead branches. It stands about 800 metres from the Citadel Defenders' Oak, named for the men who fought against the army this tree's own name honours, close enough to walk both on one visit to the park.