The oak was on the register ten years before the square had a name.
Pedunculate Oak, columnar form
Quercus robur 'Fastigiata'
Bred to stay narrow instead of spreading, the columnar or fastigiate form of the pedunculate oak grows in a tight upright column that reads as a poplar until you look at the leaf. We map 4 of them, in 3 cities.
Nurseries have propagated Quercus robur 'Fastigiata' since the nineteenth century for that shape, which is why it usually turns up in pairs flanking a gate rather than standing alone. Krakow protected the oldest in 2008, a lone tree at a crossroads whose 288-centimetre girth puts its age at roughly 140 to 210 years, calculated rather than recorded. Warsaw has two matched pairs: one flanking the university botanical garden's observatory entrance, designated in 2024, the other on ul. Lowicka, protected in 2013 and visible from the street. Nobody has dated the Warsaw pairs; fastigiate oaks spread through European gardens over two centuries, which rules out a single planting year.
Krakow
Warsaw
Two columnar oaks stand either side of the entrance nearest the garden's astronomical observatory, upright and narrow in a way ordinary pedunculate oaks never grow on their own: Quercus robur 'Fast...
Pedunculate oak spreads.
Potsdam
Most oaks spread.
Photo: Haplochromis (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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