Chestnut tree seriously diseased - the official Anne Frank House website

Horse chestnut tree diseased

The chestnut tree that Anne Frank looked out on during the time she was hiding is seriously diseased. The causes of its present poor condition are a moth and a fungus attacking the tree and may eventually kill it.

The fungus in particular is of an aggressive type and may in the end prove fatal to the tree. The moth (the so-called horse chestnut leaf miner) eats away at the leaves which eventually causes them to turn brown and fall off long before autumn. This can be clearly seen in the photograph on the left.

The 150-year-old tree (a white horse chestnut tree - Aesculus hippocastanum) stands in the inner garden of the house Keizersgracht 188, not the property of the Anne Frank House.

Leakage

Soil analysis carried out in 1993 revealed that one of the factors threatening the condition of the tree was leakage of domestic fuel oil from an underground storage tank. To save the old chestnut tree, the city of Amsterdam commissioned a soil sanitation plan of 160,000 euros. Following that, the city decided also to look after the tree in subsequent years, taking it out of the care of the Anne Frank House.

Survival

The half-yearly research held in April 2005 shows that the chestnut tree can, for the moment, be preserved. To increase stability, it was decided to considerably decrease the crown of the tree. This drastic job will take place on 26 May and can be viewed via the web cam.
To anticipate the possible cutting of the tree, grafts have been made. This means that a clone of the tree can be replanted.