The Black Locust of the Ciutadella

A trunk of 4.3 metres on a tree only 12 metres tall makes this the stoutest black locust in Barcelona and the only one the city has ever put on its register. Black locusts usually run up thin and fast and then fall over. This one went sideways and stayed, and it grows in the parterre between the Passeig de Joaquim Renart and the Cascada, the monumental fountain a young Gaudi worked on as a student assistant. How old it is nobody has established. The register's age column holds the words '100 anys' where a planting year should be, which is somebody's estimate written into the wrong box rather than a date anyone has checked, and the tree was only catalogued in 2024. What is certain is the ground it stands on. The park is 1888 work, laid out for the Universal Exposition on the cleared site of the Bourbon citadel that Barcelona spent 150 years resenting and then demolished. The species itself was one of the first American trees to reach Europe, planted in Paris around 1601 by Jean Robin, the royal gardener it is named after. In late spring the crown fills with white pea flowers heavy enough to hang and strong enough to smell before you have found the tree.