Bridgetown maps one tree so far, the African baobab in Queen's Park, one of only two baobabs on Barbados. A sign in the park claims more than 1,000 years; nothing has dated it. Its trunk is so wide that the park's sign, Wikipedia and local writers all give different figures for it. It stands on the lawn beside a children's playground, a short walk from the city centre, in a public park with no entry fee found.
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Baobab (Adansonia digitata) · Queen's Park
Barbados has two baobabs, and this is the one you can walk to from the middle of Bridgetown. The trunk is the thing. Grey, folded and swollen, it is so wide that nobody's numbers agree. The park sign gives 81 feet round, Wikipedia about 18 metres, a local blog about 17. Even the smallest of those is a vast trunk.
How old it is, nobody can say either. The sign claims more than a thousand years, and one pocket guide says 250. Baobabs are notorious for ages that grow in the telling, and this one has never been dated, so treat the big number as a story. Visit Barbados calls the other baobab, at Warrens in St Thomas, the island's oldest living tree.
The tree drops its leaves in the dry season and fruits in late summer. In 2013 someone carved into its bark, the Nation newspaper reported it, and the historian Karl Watson spoke up for the tree. The park around it grew from Queen's Park House, built in 1786 for the commander of the British garrison, and opened to everyone in 1909. Today the baobab stands on the lawn beside a children's playground, with a small white sign at its foot.
Photo: David Stanley (CC BY 2.0)