Where Salzburg's city streets give out and the Untersberg moor begins, one oak stands at the northern end of Sebastian-Kneipp-Straße, and it is there because of what used to surround it. The register of Land Salzburg describes it as a relic of the old moor litter meadows, the damp fields that were mown for bedding straw, at the edge of the Untersberger Moor and its oak woodland. The meadows are houses now. The oak is what remained of that landscape, and the province protected it as a natural monument in 1980. It is a pedunculate oak, a species that keeps a rounded crown when it has room, and this one has: the entry in the photo record describes a spherical crown, about 24 metres tall, with a trunk some four metres round at chest height. Those figures come from the description attached to a 2014 photograph that quotes the monument text, so treat them as approximate. Nobody has written down an age, and we will not guess one. What the oak offers is a clear view of a vanished kind of ground. Stand at the end of the street, look up into the crown, then look at the housing around it, and the order of events is easy to read. The tree was here first. If you have a tape measure or know its age, tell us.
catkins hang before the leaves are fully outacorns drop, and a good mast year buries the ground in themAutumn colour
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Northern end of Sebastian-Kneipp-Straße, Maxglan, SalzburgYou will find it at the very northern end of Sebastian-Kneipp-Straße, a single oak with a rounded crown standing alone beside the street.
Stands at the end of a public residential street; view from the street. Not checked whether the trunk itself is on public ground.
Maxglan, about 4 km south-west of the old town; nearest bus stop not checked
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
