Florentine, Spree Forest

The Florentine oak, also called Florentine oak or just Florentine for short, is a dead English oak in the Byttnahain near Straupitz in Brandenburg. It is registered as a natural monument.

The tree stands directly on the southern Byttna hiking trail. It can already be seen from the Straupitz-Byhleguhre local road and can be easily reached from the parking lot at the turnoff to Byhlen.

The oak is a remnant of an old hudewald and several hundred years old. It possibly germinated in the 12th century. Counts of annual rings on dead or felled old oaks in the immediate vicinity indicated ages of these trees between 750 and 800 years. According to a sign erected on site, the Florentine oak, still as a tree relic, has a circumference of 8.15 meters and a height of 18 meters. Other sources give the circumference at a height of 1.30 meters as 8.7 meters or 8.35 meters.

Like most of the other old oaks in the Byttna, the Florentine oak was heavily colonized by hero beetles, which may have eventually caused it to die after decades or even centuries of infestation. Beetle hatches were still clearly visible at least into the 1980s. Demonstrably in 1936, wipedoak blight began in the old oak. It has been dead since 1959. Only stumps of the strongest branches remain on the tree.

In the 1960s, the oak was still considered the strongest tree in the Spreewald.

The name "Florentine" goes back to Florentine von der Beeke, the wife of the general and Straupitz lord of rank Christoph von Houwald.

On May 1, 2000, a new tree was planted next to the dead oak, named Florentinchen.