What is the oldest tree in Raudonė?
The Raudonė Castle Lime, a small-leaved lime with seven trunks growing in the park of Raudonė Castle, estimated at about 400 years old by the state register. It is the only tree mapped here, published alone under the single-tree exception.
In 2018 the Lithuanian Arboriculture Centre named this lime the country's Tree of the Year, nominated by the Panemunė Regional Park administration, and it went on to represent Lithuania in the European Tree of the Year 2019 contest. Its seven trunks spread into an egg-shaped canopy 20 metres tall and 19 metres wide, covering some 220 square metres of the castle park. A metal rod is embedded between two of the trunks about three metres up, and local legend, retold by the regional park's own website as folklore rather than history, says seven serfs were once chained to it and whipped to death, and that the tree split into seven trunks from the horror of it. The state register puts its actual age at roughly 400 years. The castle building itself now houses a primary school, but the surrounding park and the castle tower are an established, ticketed visitor attraction, listed by regional tourism guides, so the tree is reachable despite the school on site.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.