The Ficus of Plaza de la Pipa

This ficus is one of thirteen Ficus microcarpa the city catalogues as monumental, named in a 2025 council press release that also describes the maintenance regime behind the health of these trees: root plates wrapped in coconut fibre and checked on a quarterly rotation, protection against the compaction of the busy plazas most of them stand in. It shares its own square, a small pedestrian plaza called Plaza de la Pipa in the Carolinas Bajas district, with a bronze sculpture by Eduardo Lastres, and faces what was once the city's tobacco factory, now the Las Cigarreras cultural centre. At 2.12 metres around, the trunk is modest next to Alicante's giant Moreton Bay figs downtown, but the Valencian register gives it a higher individual protection category than most of the city's monumental ficus carry. The canopy explains why: Wikipedia's account of the plaza calls it simply gran copa, a big one, spread wide on a trunk that never had to compete for light. Nobody has recorded when it was planted. If you know, tell us.