The Guardian Oak of Víska
Approximate location. Show us where it is
How do I find it? You can recognise it by the trunk, 455 centimetres round, with a bench and an information board at its foot. It stands on its own at the southern edge of Víska, right beside the bridge over the Smědá.
On 7 August 2010 this oak stood in the way of a flood and held. The Smědá broke its banks that night and came down through Víska carrying whole trees, and the oak caught them against its trunk and kept the jam out of the houses below. Local accounts credit it with saving a couple and their dog as well. Three years later the country voted it Tree of the Year, and in 2014 it placed fifth in Europe. Locally it is Dub ochránce, the Guardian Oak. It is not an ancient tree. Roughly 150 years, which is early middle age for a pedunculate oak, 455 centimetres round and 20 metres tall. Nobody has dated it more precisely than that, so if you know when it went in, tell us. Arborists pruned the crown in September 2014 to keep it sound, which is what a village does for a tree it owes something to. It stands at the southern edge of the settlement, beside the road and the footbridge over the same river. There is a bench under it now and a board explaining what happened. Both arrived after the water did.
- Species
- Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur)
- Girth
- 4.55 m
- Location
- Southern edge of the Víska settlement, beside the road and footbridge over the Smědá river, Višňová municipality, Liberec District, Liberec Region (Víska (part of Višňová))
- Access
- Free, on a public road at the edge of the village, beside the bridge over the Smědá. An information board and a seating area for visitors stand beneath it.
- Getting there
- No rail; reached by local bus to Višňová/Víska (Liberec District) or by car, then a short walk to the village's southern edge.
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