The Wertheimsteinpark Turkish Hazel

A Turkish hazel with a crown 25 metres wide is a surprise, because this is a species usually met as a neat, narrow street tree. Here, in the Wertheimsteinpark, one has been left to do what it wants. The trunk measures 3.5 metres round at a metre above the ground, and the crown spreads wider than the tree is tall. The city's tree cadastre puts its height in the 16 to 20 metre class, so it is a tree built outward rather than upward. Vienna protected it in February 2012 as Natural Monument 827, the same day as three other trees in this park. The register gives no age and neither does the cadastre, which records no planting year, so the number of years it has stood here stays an open question. Girth for girth it is a heavy tree for its kind, and the crown, not the trunk, is the reason somebody wanted it kept. Turkish hazel comes from south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor, and its corky, flaking bark gives it an architectural look in winter, when the shape of the crown is easiest to read. The park slopes down toward the Donaukanal and holds many old and exotic plants, so it makes sense to take this tree together with the lime and the service tree on the way.