What is the oldest tree in Barcelona?
The oldest tree in Barcelona whose age has actually been measured is a holm oak on Carrer de l'Encarnacio in the Vila de Gracia neighbourhood, dated by dendrochronology to around 250 years old. It already appears on city maps from 1845, when Gracia was still farmland, and stands in a small garden opened to the public in 2021 after a three-year campaign to stop the site being demolished. One tree may be older: the city register dates a wild olive in Park Guell to 1771, but that figure is an estimate nobody has checked against the wood.
The holm oak on Carrer de l'Encarnacio predates the neighbourhood that grew up around it. Gracia was a scatter of farmhouses when the tree was young, and it appears on the city's 1845 maps standing on rural land known as the Pla del Bonpa, tied to a farmhouse called Can Vidalet. Dendrochronologists, tree-ring specialists, later dated it to roughly 250 years old, making it the oldest tree in Barcelona whose age anyone has actually measured. The tree nearly did not survive to be dated: a development plan for the historic Casetes de l'Encarnacio around it triggered a three-year local campaign, and the oak was formally catalogued as a Tree of Local Interest in 2019 specifically to stop the bulldozers. The garden around it opened to the public in April 2021, though only the facades of the original houses could be saved. For grandeur over paperwork, Barcelona's biggest tree by volume is a different story entirely: a Rehder's wingnut in the botanical garden's Sot de l'Estany ravine, reaching roughly 40 metres in a hole in the ground nobody visits. Getting to the oak: Fontana station on the L3, then an eight minute walk into Vila de Gracia.
One of Barcelona's trees also appears in Europe's Ancient Oaks You Can Actually Visit, a themed collection spanning several cities.