2-798-410 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Curious Oak at Baden-Baden, 1844. '...two branches of an oak-tree, which, re-uniting above, again forms one single trunk, as undivided and complete as at the base. Nature, and not art, has produced this junction. The tree was, for the first time, observed in 1818, by wood-cutters in the Kaiserswald (now Mahlbergwald), Grand Duchy of Baden. Being considered a great curiosity, this portion of the tree was cut off and fixed in a part of the grounds surrounding Mahlberg Schloss...Between the branches is seen the village of Orschweier; beyond are the vine-bearing hills of the Kaiserstahl; and more distant still, on the right, the mountains of the Vosges in France; the Rhine flowing between these two ranges'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.