The Norfolk Island Pine of the Casa de la Misericordia

A tree from a Pacific island eight kilometres long stands 27 metres over one of the most densely built neighbourhoods in Europe. The Norfolk Island pine in the courtyard of the Casa de la Misericordia is the tallest thing in this part of the Raval, visible above the rooftops long before you find the doorway on Carrer d'Elisabets. Its trunk is a modest 1.5 metres around, because the species grows like a mast rather than a barrel, throwing out whorls of branches in tidy tiers and going straight up. That was precisely the appeal when Cook reached Norfolk Island in 1774 and reported the trees as a supply of masts for the Royal Navy. The timber turned out too brittle and the scheme came to nothing, which is roughly how the species ended up as an ornamental instead, planted in warm coastal cities from Sydney to here. The courtyard it stands in was a foundling house and orphanage, and the four fan palms beside it went in around 1904. The pine itself has no recorded planting date at all and joined the city register in 2016 on its size. The yard is now a public passage with a bookshop and a cafe in it, which makes this one of the easiest large trees in Barcelona to walk to.