Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Liebig's strange trees (merkwürdige bäume) of the world, Part 2

Following up on Sunday's post, here are two more images featuring Strange Trees from Liebig's German-language vintage advertising trade cards.


Die grosse Lindevon
Schloss Augustusburg (Sachsen)


This mighty tree, the Great Lime of Augustusburg, is located at Augustusburg Castle (also known as Augustusburg Hunting Lodge) in Saxony, Germany.

It is one of numerous ancient lime trees in Germany. According to the German-language Wikisource, it was planted in the early 1400s and predates the castle. The tree and its heavy horizontal branches were first supported with a wooden grid around 1549. The support structure was modified and replaced many times over the centuries and also included a copper dome at one point. In 1891, a tornado damaged part of the support structure, including brick pillars around the base, and the great lime also lost several primary branches. (This illustration might have been made before that storm damage.)


Cypresse bei Oajaca
(Mexico)


This storied tree has its own Wikipedia page. It is El Árbol del Tule, and it is generally thought to be 1,400 to 1,600 years old. It is located in the small town of Santa María del Tule, about six miles east of Oaxaca. It has a "smoothed-out" diameter of 30.8 feet, making it the stoutest known tree in the world, wider than the mightiest giant sequoia.

Sadly, El Árbol del Tule is said to be slowly dying, on account of water shortages, pollution and nearby traffic.

Here is a 2005 photograph of the tree, via Wikipedia...

"12-05oaxaca093" by Bobak Ha'Eri at en.wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:12-05oaxaca093.jpg#/media/File:12-05oaxaca093.jpg

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