The Tofferl Oak

The Tofferl Oak's crown is nearly as wide as the tree is tall. The province's register gives it a good 25 metres in height, a crown 20 to 25 metres across and a trunk five metres round, which is the shape a pedunculate oak takes when nothing has ever crowded it. It stands in the Goiser Wiesen, open meadow at Gois in Wals-Siezenheim, about seven kilometres west of Salzburg's old town and not far from the A1 on its way to the Walserberg. That is a neighbouring municipality rather than the city, and no other tree on this page is within walking distance. Land Salzburg protected it as a natural monument on 26 November 1985 and lists it in the Salzburger Naturschutzbuch, the province's record of protected nature, as a tree that shapes the landscape around it. SalzburgWiki gives the same measurements, probably taken from the same register, so read them as one source rather than two. Nobody has published an age for it, and we will not invent one. If you know how old it is, or where the name Tofferl comes from, tell us. Two geocaches are hidden at the tree, so people clearly find their way to it. What we have not established is whether the trunk stands on public ground or beside a public path, so plan to see it from the edge of the meadow. Go in winter if you can: with the leaves down, the whole frame of that crown shows.