The Japanese Pagoda Tree of Carrer de la Guardia Urbana
The Japanese pagoda tree is not from Japan. Styphnolobium japonicum is native to China, planted for centuries around Buddhist and Taoist temples there, and reached Europe under a name that stuck long after botanists sorted out the mistake. Barcelona's specimen on Carrer de la Guardia Urbana, a short walk from Montjuic's Greek Theatre, is 2.3 metres round and 20 metres tall, added to the city's catalogue of trees of local interest in 2024. Its age is officially listed as under study, which is honest rather than evasive: the species can live for centuries in the right conditions, but nobody has aged this individual specimen, by ring count or by any other method. What earned it protection was size alone. The tree flowers in late summer, cream white clusters that are one of the few genuine bursts of colour on Barcelona's streets in August, when most of the city's flowering trees have already finished for the year. It stands on an ordinary residential street in Poble-sec, no garden, no gate, nothing to mark it beyond the tree itself.
In bloom
late July into August, when it flowers
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Carrer de la Guardia Urbana, Poble-sec, BarcelonaYou can recognise it by being the only thing on the street worth looking at, 20 metres tall on a trunk 2.3 metres round, with cream white flower clusters in late summer. It stands on Carrer de la Guardia Urbana in Poble-sec.
Free, public street, no gate
Poble Sec metro station (L3), about 10 minutes' walk
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
- In the official register: Ajuntament de Barcelona, Arbres d'interes local
- Ajuntament de Barcelona, Arbres d'interes local (the designated singular-tree register, not the street inventory) (register_id 99400761024)