Twelve Apostles Linden
| Twelve Apostles Linden | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| place | Gehrden | ||
| country | North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany | ||
| Tree species | Winter linden | ||
| Height above sea level | 180 m | ||
| Geographical location | 51 ° 39 '15.5 " N , 9 ° 7' 4.4" E | ||
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| Status natural monument | Yes | ||
| Age | 400 to 800 years | ||
| Trunk circumference (waist) | 9.70 m (1999) | ||
| Trunk circumference (1 m height) |
9.80 m (2000) | ||
| Tree height | about 20 m | ||
The twelve-apostle linden tree is a natural monument in the village of Gehrden in the Höxter district in North Rhine-Westphalia . The winter lime tree ( Tilia cordata ) stands in the garden of Gehrden Monastery , a former Benedictine abbey . According to various estimates, the age of the linden tree is given as 400 to 800 years. The circumference of the trunk is about 10 meters at a height of 20 meters.
history
The linden tree stands in the former monastery garden of the Gehrden monastery. The monastery was dissolved in June 1810 by order of the King of Westphalia , Jerome Bonaparte . In 1826 the monastery area and the linden tree passed to Kaspar Heinrich von Sierstorpff . In the 1930s, during a heavy Good Friday thunderstorm at the hour of Jesus' death, a branch, the monastery tradition after the traitorous Judas , is said to have broken from the trunk. Today there is a hole in the trunk at the break point and shows that it is hollow on the inside. To prevent further branches from breaking out, iron bands, so-called knobs, were placed around the remaining branches. The linden tree has been open to the public since 1950. Until then it was hidden behind closed monastery walls in the monastery garden. When renovation work was due to be carried out on the church, the responsible district commissioner for nature conservation, teacher Gorzel, and the Lower Saxony homestead campaigned for renovation work on the linden tree. This was carried out by the "tree doctor" Michael Maurer . The knuckles attached after the branch broke in the 1930s had cut into the bark as the branches continued to grow and pressed the sap beneath the bark. Old rotten wood was removed, holes were closed with bars, but not sealed with stones and cement, as was sometimes done on other trees. A platform inside the crown with a spiral staircase has been removed. Maurer replaced the ring slippers with steel cable anchors on two floors, the lower two meters above the hollow of the trunk, another ten meters higher. So that they cannot pinch off the growing bark, the eyebolts, which hold the ten and twelve millimeter thick steel cables, were passed through the wood of the trunk. With this high anchor, the crown can swing out in wind and storm, whereby one trunk fetches another via the wire ropes.
Between 1959 and 1961, Matthias Heinen from Dortmund acquired the monastery complex; the property has been used as an educational facility for the family education center in the Archdiocese of Paderborn since the mid-1960s . The linden tree was surrounded by a grid fence in autumn 2002 to protect people from falling branches. In the following year, the over 30 meter high crown was cut back to about ten meters. There remained eleven strong and a few smaller branches. The crown was once formed by twelve emblematic branches, each representing an apostle. This is where the name of the linden tree is derived. A spiral staircase around the trunk led to a wooden platform on a hollow between the rising branches. This arbor platform was once used by the nuns as a place for meditation and prayer.
description
The tree's habit is striking. Twelve trunks rose in a bouquet-shaped manner and formed the once spherical crown. The trunks dissolve at a height of about two to three meters into branches that strive further upwards. Today eleven of the twelve branches are still present and form the approximately 20 meter high crown.
scope
In 1905, Emil Schlieckmann stated that the remarkable trees in Westphalia were seven meters in circumference. The linden tree has recently been measured at different heights. In 1973, Aloys Bernatzky named a trunk circumference of 10.20 meters at a height of one meter. In 1992, the forest scientist Hans Joachim Fröhlich stated a circumference of 9.50 meters at a height of 1.3 meters, the point of the so-called breast height diameter (BHD). In 2007 Michel Brunner determined a circumference of 9.80 meters in Significant Linden . The German tree archive determined in 1999 at the point of smallest diameter (waist) in circumference and 9.70 in 2000, in a meter height of 9.80 meters. The forester and author Hartwig Goerss named in 1981 a chest height of 9.30 meters. In 2008 the chest height was 9.76 m. With these dimensions, the linden tree is one of the largest linden trees in Germany.
Age
The age of the linden tree is associated with the foundation of the monastery in 1142 and the completion of the Romanesque monastery church in 1180. According to this, the linden tree would be over 700 years old. In 1905 a circumference of 7, in 2000 of 9.80 meters was determined. An increase in circumference of 2.8 meters over the past 95 years corresponds to an annual increase of approximately three centimeters. If the linden tree has grown at a similarly fast rate in the previous century, a significantly lower age of the linden tree must be assumed. In order to be able to determine the specific age, an annual ring count was carried out in the second half of the 20th century using a drill core extraction. However, only the outer 60 centimeters of the trunk measuring around 150 centimeters in radius could be pierced, then a cavity was found. Based on the homogeneous annual ring conditions in this 60-centimeter section, the age was extrapolated to 350 to a maximum of 400 years. Since the oldest wood is missing in the center of the trunk, it is not possible to determine the age of the radioactive carbon content ( radiocarbon dating , also called 14 C dating); Samples would be from a much younger wood tissue.
In the current literature there are different statements from 400 to 800 years. The German Tree Archives estimated the age of the linden tree in 2012 to be 300 to 330 years. In 1994 Hans Joachim Fröhlich assumed an age of around 400 to 600 years. Michel Brunner estimated it to be around 450 years in 2007. Hartwig Goerss named an age of 800 years in 1981, as did Aloys Bernatzky in 1973.
literature
- Bernd Ullrich, Stefan Kühn, Uwe Kühn: Our 500 oldest trees: Exclusively from the German Tree Archives . 2nd revised edition. BLV Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-8354-0957-6 .
- Stefan Kühn, Bernd Ullrich, Uwe Kühn: Germany's old trees: fabulous tree shapes between the coast and the Alps . 6th revised edition. BLV Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-8354-0740-4 .
- Michel Brunner: Important linden trees - 400 giant trees in Germany . Haupt-Verlag, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-258-07248-7 .
- Hans Joachim Fröhlich : Old lovable trees in Germany . Cornelia Ahlering Verlag, Buchholz 2000, ISBN 3-926600-05-5 .
- Hans Joachim Fröhlich: Paths to old trees, Volume 4, North Rhine-Westphalia . WDV-Wirtschaftsdienst, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-926181-18-4 .
- Hartwig Goerss: Our tree veterans . Landbuch, Hannover 1981, ISBN 3-7842-0247-0 .
- Aloys Bernatzky: Tree and Man - With articles on tree surgery by Michael Maurer . 2nd Edition. Waltemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-7829-1045-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Stefan Kühn, Bernd Ullrich, Uwe Kühn: Germany's old trees: legendary tree shapes between the coast and the Alps . 6th revised edition. BLV Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-8354-0740-4 , p. 108 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Aloys Bernatzky: Tree and man - With articles on tree surgery by Michael Maurer . 2nd Edition. Waltemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-7829-1045-1 , p. 137-138 .
- ↑ a b c d e Michel Brunner: Significant linden trees. 400 giant trees in Germany . Haupt-Verlag, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-258-07248-7 , p. 234 .
- ↑ a b c d e Hans Joachim Fröhlich : Old lovable trees in Germany . Cornelia Ahlering Verlag, Buchholz 2000, ISBN 3-926600-05-5 , p. 118 .
- ↑ a b Bernd Ullrich, Stefan Kühn, Uwe Kühn: Our 500 oldest trees: Exclusively from the German Tree Archives . 2nd revised edition. BLV Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-8354-0957-6 , p. 189 .
- ↑ a b Hartwig Goerss: Our tree veterans . Landbuch, Hannover 1981, ISBN 3-7842-0247-0 , p. 60-61 .
- ↑ Twelve Apostles Linden in the directory of monumental oaks . Retrieved January 31, 2017
- ↑ Michel Brunner: Giant trees of Switzerland . Werd Verlag AG, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-85932-629-3 , p. 150 .