Bildeiche bei Albertshausen, Natural monument oak tree in Bad Kissingen, Germany
The Bildeiche is a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) about 24 m tall with a crown diameter of roughly 19 m and a trunk circumference of 7.80 m at breast height. Its bark is furrowed up to 10 cm deep in board-like ridges that run to the top of the crown. The trunk is completely hollow, with a narrow opening about 2.5 m high on its north side, and is free of branches up to about 6 m. It stands in open field beside the Bad Kissingen motorway feeder road, framed by a hornbeam hedge.
The tree was deliberately spared around 1810 during forest clearing operations when surrounding land was converted to farmland. This decision left it as a remnant from an earlier era.
The name Bildeiche comes from a Marian image that believers once fixed to the tree; it was reportedly enclosed by bark and sapwood over the years and is no longer visible. In 1933 the Bad Kissingen forestry official Carl Steinbach, then hunting tenant of Albertshausen, had sculptor Josef Kirchner of Hausen carve the Archangel Michael now mounted about 2.5 metres up the east side of the trunk. The statue was blessed during a church procession, later stolen, found near Fulda, and replaced at the tree by a copy; the original stands in Albertshausen's parish church of St. Michael. The figure carries a banner reading QUIS UT DEUS.
The oak stands about 500 metres south-east of Albertshausen at roughly 300 metres above sea level, directly beside the motorway feeder road from Bad Kissingen to the A7, with an exit to the village built next to it in 1965–1968. The site is owned by the city of Bad Kissingen; the tree is enclosed by a hornbeam hedge, and the woodland edge now lies 300 metres to the south.
The hollow trunk has a narrow opening about 2.5 metres high on its north side; the rotten, fungus-infested wood inside was removed during a tree-care operation, the surface treated with fungicide and the opening sealed with fine wire mesh. The bark is furrowed up to ten centimetres deep, with board-like ridges running to the crown tip, a feature seen in very few oaks and taken as a sign of great age.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,947 contributors worldwide.