The Plane of Dr. Karl Lueger-Platz

Planted in 1928, and already four metres thirty-four around the trunk. That is what a London plane does with a century and enough root room, and it is why people looking at a tree like this guess two or three hundred years. Vienna's tree cadastre has the planting year written down, which ends the guessing before it starts. The city protects it as a Naturdenkmal, a natural monument, which for a street tree means it is not going to be removed for roadworks or sightlines. It stands on the Ring between Stubentor and the Stadtpark, on a stretch that otherwise runs the better part of a kilometre without a protected tree, so it fills a real gap for anyone walking the Ring for its trees rather than its buildings. The square carries the name of Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910, whose antisemitic politics have kept that name under public argument in the city for decades and keep it there now. The tree went into the ground eighteen years after he left office. It is the address you will be looking for. Both records of this tree, the monument register and the cadastre, are Vienna's own. They agree with each other, which is not the same as two independent sources, and the trunk figure is a measurement rather than an estimate.