Nicknamed Serce Ogrodu (Heart of the Garden), the winning tree grows in the village of Wojsławice located some 50 km south of Wrocław.
Wojsławice’s arboretum, a collection of trees of a variety of species, is a part of the University of Wrocław’s botanical garden.
"The choice was made via an online selection with Serce Ogrodu securing 6,643 votes,” said Jacek Bożek, the head of the environmental and animal rights NGO Klub Gaja, organiser of the event.
A total of over 27,000 valid votes were cast and nearly 70,000 visits to the competition's website, www.drzeworoku.pl. were recorded, according to Klub Gaja.
"Serce Ogrodu impresses with its majesty and captivates with its unusually shaped, thick trunk, widely spreading branches, and intense purple foliage", Bożek noted, adding that “under the shade of its grand canopy, nature fiends continue to gather - just as they did 100 or 200 years ago - united in admiration for nature."
The awards ceremony will take place on 12 October during the celebration of Tree Day in Warsaw.
Serce Ogrodu will be Poland’s entry for the 2024 European Tree of the Year award with 16 countries competing.
Poland’s last year's winner, a 180-year-old common oak, nicknamed Fabrykant [Factory owner], which grows in the central Polish city of Łódź, won the European Tree of the Year 2023 contest.
(mo)
Source: PAP
