The Max-Patat-Weg Plane

The city's own description calls this one of the mightiest planes in Vienna, and the numbers back it: 5.1 metres round the trunk, about 26 metres tall, a crown a good 25 metres across. It is Natural Monument 457, an oriental plane on the Max-Patat-Weg, the lane running off Döblinger Hauptstraße beside the Emil-Reich-Hof. The complication is that it does not stand alone. The city's tree cadastre records three big old trees within thirty metres of the register's point: two planes, one 4.28 metres round and one 6.67 metres round, and a small-leaved lime. A second protected group, Natural Monument 620, a sycamore maple, a lime and another plane, stands about 25 metres away. So this corner of Döbling holds a small stand of veteran planes, and the register's coordinates do not settle which trunk carries number 457. The thickest of them, at 6.67 metres, is named as a monument by no source we have found. Nobody has published an age for the protected tree, so we give none. What you can do is stand in the lane and look up at all of them. If you know which plane is number 457, or have a tape measure, tell us. The Wertheimsteinpark and its four monuments are about 300 metres away.