The city protected these two trees for a reason that is almost modest: rarity. Natural Monument 845, entered in January 2019, covers a pair of Caucasian wingnuts in the Waldmüllerpark in Favoriten, which the register says deserve keeping because of their scarcity and the character they give the landscape. Nothing is claimed about age or fame. The case rests on the trees themselves. The cadastre measures one of the two at 251 centimetres round and places its height in the 31 to 35 metre class, a rough figure but a tall one. It records no planting year, so we offer no age. Wingnuts grow fast and wide and throw up suckers, which is why old ones often look like a thicket of stems rather than one trunk. Pterocarya fraxinifolia comes from the Caucasus and northern Iran. The leaves look like an ash's, long and divided, and in summer the tree hangs chains of winged fruit that give the genus its name. That is the thing to look for. The two trees stand about 25 metres apart, and the register treats them as one monument.
Flowerslong green catkins of winged nutlets hang from every branchAutumn colour
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Waldmüllerpark, Landgutgasse 61-65A pair of tall wingnuts about 25 metres apart, with long ash-like leaves and, in summer, hanging chains of winged fruit.
Free. Public city park.
Wien Hauptbahnhof (U1, S-Bahn, trains), about 12 minutes on foot.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
