Checklist of Champion Trees in The Czech Republic

Abstract

An increasing number of people all around the world have become interested in remarkable and magnificent trees in recent years. Accessible databases of champion trees are available. Unfortunately, the Czech Republic does not have a single database of remarkable or champion trees. We have old tradition to find and describe an old and monumental trees in our country. In 1899 the first book was issued about it. Many of the biggest specimens are already registered in the Monumental Trees database, which is run by the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, registered a total of 25,598 memorable trees in 2017. Not all remarkable or champion trees are designated as memorable. Due too we present the known data on champion trees in an independent checklist. There are shown 116 species of trees with their girth and other information as height, GPS coordinate etc. from various sources. This checklist is a basis for a future one national database. When comparing the champion trees of the Czech Republic with the databases of other European states, particularly that of Monumental Trees, it emerges that we are not far from coming first. The Czech champion tree, Vejda's Lime Tree in Pastviny (Tilia platyphyllos Scop.) measured 1,305 cm at girth in 2015. We would like to prepare one integrated Czech database of remarkable trees and champion trees by help of the Professor August Bayer Foundation as soon as possible.

Keywords

• remarkable trees
• databases trees
• champion trees
• monumental trees