The Twin Planes of Am Platz

Two Oriental planes stand in front of the Hietzing parish church, and the district tells their story as a thank-offering for surviving the plague. By that account, published by the district office, Countess Scalquiogni, a lady-in-waiting at the Habsburg court, gave Hietzing three plane trees in 1732 in gratitude for coming through an epidemic. Two of the three are still here. In April 2020 the district called them 288 years old, which fits that date to the year. Vienna's own tree cadastre disagrees, and not by a little. It records the same two trunks as planted in 1810 and 1860, which would make the younger of the pair a nineteenth century street tree rather than a Baroque gift. Both readings are on the record. The 1732 account is the more specific and comes with a name attached; the cadastre is the city's working inventory. Expect the truth to sit somewhere in that gap. They measure about 4.2 metres around each and stand 13 metres apart, on a square that has been Hietzing's Sunday gathering place since the Middle Ages. Vienna protected the pair as a single natural monument, number 122, in March 1939. In late February 2020 the storm named Yulia tore into both crowns. The district had them pruned back for safety and cabled, which is what the steel running through the canopy is holding together.