june bride oder baumbastik

Amusing Planet has a nice profile and appreciation of the Bridegroom’s Oak (die Bräutigamseiche) of the Dodauer Forest of Eutin—north of Lübeck, a tree with its own postal code (Postleitzahl) and recipient of human correspondence and secret-keeper.
While the tree’s origins might be conflated with myth and the message of missionaries, the tradition of letter-writing can be traced back to historical star-crossed lovers. A forester’s daughter and the son of a Leipziger chocolatier used the oak as a letter-drop cite for their liaisons—to their parents’ initial disapproval. Later the parents relented and the pair was wed under the trees boughs in June 1891. Their fame spread by word of mouth and people began writing to the tree in hopes of finding true love. Letters deposited in the tree’s trunk are open to public-inspection and several matches have been made over the years. The Bridegroom’s Oak was itself married to the Holy Ghost horse chestnut (die Himmelgeister Kastanie) in April of 2009—across Germany in the Ruhrgebiet near Düsseldorf. The two seem to be handling their long-distance relationship quite well.