Dąb Franciszek (the Franciszek Oak)

The plan for the oldest tree in Żywiec's castle park is to make it shorter. Sulphur polypore, an aggressive fungus, is working through the wood of the trunk, and arborists intend to bring the oak's height down in stages over the coming years to ten or twelve metres, leaving what they call a witness trunk: a standing, living, much reduced version of the tree. That is not an obituary. After recent treatment Franciszek put out abundant new shoots and dark green foliage, and both accounts of it agree that it responded well. It is alive, it is being fought for, and the people looking after it are open about where the fight is heading. The park puts it at roughly 370 years old, with a spread of about 320 to 400. The name comes from Count Franciszek Wielopolski, who lived from 1658 to 1732, which dates the man rather than the tree; the two numbers are not the same fact. Its girth has never been published. What is on record instead is how fast it grows, about two centimetres a year. If you have stood there with a tape measure, tell us. It marks the start of the lovers' alley in Park Zamkowy, beside the Old Castle and the Habsburg palace in the centre of Żywiec, free to walk into from early morning until late. Of the 33 protected natural monuments in the municipality, this one has been here the longest.