Senckenberg yew

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Senckenberg yew (also known as the "old yew") is an approximately 400-year-old yew ( Taxus baccata ) that is now in the palm garden in Frankfurt am Main and is one of the oldest yew trees in Germany.

The yew tree, named after Johann Christian Senckenberg , became famous when it was transplanted in 1907 as a fully grown, approximately 300-year-old and approximately 12 m high tree. This made it one of the largest trees ever transplanted at the time. Since then, the Senckenberg yew has been standing on the northern edge of the palm garden, north of a greenhouse .

The Senckenberg yew when it moved in 1907. Scan from the original print.

history

According to local tradition, the yew tree is said to have been planted before the Thirty Years War (1618–1648).

  • In 1766, Johann Christian Senckenberg bought the site (at the Eschenheimer Turm ) on which the "Old Yew Tree" stood - this is where the old botanical garden was created , which was later owned by the Senckenberg Foundation.
  • In 1907 the site was sold by the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research . In order to preserve the yew tree, it should be transplanted into the new botanical garden, which was created north of the palm garden. In order to enable the yew to be transplanted, work had already begun three years earlier to limit its root space by drawing a ditch around the yew and to ensure that roots were formed in the soil that was to be taken along during the transplantation. In April and May 1907 the ball of the yew tree was surrounded by a wooden box and stored on rollers, and the structure, which weighed around 45 tons, was pulled by two steam rollers over a distance of around 3.5 kilometers to its new location in May and June and planted there again.
  • In 1960 the area of ​​the Botanical Garden including the Senckenberg yew tree was integrated into the Frankfurt Palm Garden .

swell

Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 31.4 "  N , 8 ° 39 ′ 25.4"  E