Three hundred metres from Square Rene-Le Gall's horse chestnut, on the same buried river, stands a Turkey oak the city's own register lists at 190 centimetres round and 18 metres tall.
Turkey Oak
Quercus cerris
Quercus cerris is an oak of southern and southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, and north of its range every one was planted on purpose: gardeners liked how fast it grows and how large it gets while the person who planted it is still around to see it. We map 11 of them, in 11 cities.
Genoa's, in the English-style grounds of Villa Serra above the city, is the surprise: 41 metres, taller than the Californian redwood sixty metres away. Caserta's grows in the royal park's English Garden among trees collected from Australia and California, while the species grows wild in the hills a few kilometres away. Utrecht's four stand together on an old city-wall bastion, close enough that the Dutch register counts them as one entry. The leaves give it away: stiffer and more deeply cut than a pedunculate oak's, with whiskery bud scales and mossy, curl-wrapped acorn cups.
Paris
London
Dulwich has exactly one Great Tree of London, and it is not a native oak.
Photo: Hopefully Acceptable Username (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Leeuwarden
In fruit
The national register calls this one of the heaviest Turkey oaks in the Netherlands, and then declines to say how thick it is.
Trieste
Trieste used to go skating here.
Utrecht
Autumn colour
Four Turkey oaks grow together on the old Geertebolwerk bastion, close enough beside the water that the Dutch monumental tree register counts them as one entry rather than four.
Dresden
Dresden got round to protecting this oak in February 2024, some 130 years after the city planted it.
Photo: Lvem95 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Genoa
At 41 metres this is the tallest of Villa Serra's four monumental trees, taller than the Californian redwood standing sixty metres away, which is not what anyone expects from an oak.
Arnhem
In fruit
This oak was planted in a cemetery and outlasted it.
Zwolle
Zwolle's own list of special trees names exactly one Turkey oak in the whole city.
Caserta
In a garden collected out of Australia, the Himalaya and California, this oak grows wild in the hills a few kilometres away.
Cologne
Cologne's Volksgarten opened in 1889 with a shortcut nobody does anymore: its designer transplanted roughly four hundred already-mature trees in from other woodland so the new park would look estab...
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