What is the oldest tree in Rogalin?
The oldest tree in Rogalin is Rus's Oak, cored by the Institute of Dendrology at Kornik in 2019 and dated to roughly 800 to 850 years, making it the oldest dated oak in Poland. It stands in the open parkland beside Rogalin Palace, a branch of the National Museum in Poznan, ninety metres from its named companion, Lech's Oak.
Lech, Czech and Rus are the legendary brothers who in Slavic founding myth set out from one place and founded Poland, Bohemia and the Rus, and Rogalin hung the names on three oaks growing together in a river meadow beside its palace. Rus earned its dating the hard way: in 2019 the Institute of Dendrology at Kornik put a core into the 9.15 metre trunk and came back with 800 to 850 years, the oldest dated oak anywhere in Poland. The institute also cloned it in vitro that year; the clone, Rusek, grows near the palace gate as a young sapling and should not be mistaken for the original. Lech, 6.33 metres round and ninety metres off, has no dated age in any source we found, so several hundred years is as far as the evidence honestly goes. Czech, the thickest of the three at 7.35 metres, died in 1992; its trunk still stands nearby, so the short walk between the oaks takes in two living giants and the remains of a third. The parkland is free, about twenty kilometres south of Poznan, with the cycle path along the Warta the easiest way in.
One of Rogalin's trees also appears in The Autumn Harvest, a themed collection spanning several cities.