Austin's Tree of the Year for 2011 is a pecan that people mostly know from lying underneath it. The Mother Pecan stands in Zilker Park near Barton Springs Pool, and the two accounts written about it describe the same thing from different angles: an outdoor yoga spot in one, a place to lean a bicycle and sit in the shade of a communal pecan in the other. The award came from the Austin Tree of the Year Awards, which judged it the best large tree in the city that year. Margret Hoffman, the former council member Austin knew as the Tree Lady, came to the ceremony. Finding it takes a little looking, and that is worth saying plainly. The awards record puts it at 802 Azie Morton Road, another account at 2201 Barton Springs Road, and the two are about 400 metres apart by road. Both describe the stretch of park around the pool, so our pin marks that area rather than the trunk. If you have stood under it and can tell us where, or send a photograph, we will move the pin. Do not confuse it with the other famous Zilker pecan. That one stood near the great lawn, dated only from the 1970s, and fell in the Memorial Day floods of 2015; a transplanted live oak took its place. Nobody has published an age for the Mother Pecan either. If you know it, tell us.
Zilker Park, near Barton Springs Pool, in the vicinity of 2201 Barton Springs Road / 802 Azie Morton Road You can recognise it by the people in its shade: a big pecan used as a yoga and resting spot. It stands in Zilker Park near Barton Springs Pool; the exact spot is unconfirmed, so a reader's photo helps.
Free. Stands in Zilker Metropolitan Park, one of Austin's largest and most-visited public parks, near Barton Springs Pool; open during park hours.
In Zilker Park near Barton Springs Pool, about a 20-25 minute walk or a short Capital Metro bus ride south of downtown Austin across the Lamar or South First bridges.