What is the oldest tree in Cadiz?

The Ficus macrophylla of the Alameda Apodaca, planted in 1903 on the seafront promenade. Parque Genoves' dragon tree may be older still, estimated at 100 to 200 years, but without a documented planting date.

Why are so many of Cadiz's trees not native to Spain?

Cadiz was one of Spain's major Atlantic trading ports for centuries, and its 19th century public gardens were built specifically to display exotic species merchants and travellers brought home, a dragon tree from the Canary Islands, a pohutukawa from New Zealand, an ombu from Argentina, a fig from India.

What happened to Cadiz's other famous dragon tree?

The Drago del Tinte, growing at a former arts and crafts school elsewhere in the city, collapsed in a storm in April 2013. The dragon tree in Parque Genoves is now the last one of any age standing in Cadiz.

Are Cadiz's remarkable trees free to see?

Yes, all of them stand in free public gardens: the seafront Alameda Apodaca and the inland Parque Genoves, both open daily with no entry fee.

Spain

Ancient Trees in Cadiz

Cadiz spent centuries as a trading port to the Americas and the East, and its public gardens still read like a cargo manifest: a fig from India, a dragon tree from the Canary Islands, a pohutukawa from New Zealand, an ombu from the Argentine pampas, a floss silk tree from Brazil. Almost nothing in this list is native to Spain. Most of it clusters in two 19th century gardens built specifically to show off exactly this kind of imported curiosity, one on the seafront, one inland around a park the city still protects by name.

Photo: Anual, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Ficus of Alameda Apodaca

Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) · approximately 123 years · San Carlos

Four fig saplings carried from India by missionary nuns are the origin story behind this tree and its three siblings scattered across Cadiz. One of the nuns died during the voyage and was nursed in her final days at the city's Hospital de Mora; the surviving sisters planted the saplings as a memorial, two here on the seafront Alameda and two more near the old hospital site. Planted in 1903, more than two decades before Juan Talavera y Heredia's regionalist redesign gave the Alameda its current look, the tree has since grown into something closer to a small grove than a single trunk, its lower branches sending down aerial roots that thicken into extra trunks over the flat marble terrace where it stands. Locals sometimes call the pair the Ficus Gemelos, the twin figs, though decades of divergent growth have left one visibly larger than the other. Cadiz's Atlantic wind is hard on a tree built this wide and this exposed, and its wood is known locally as brittle, prone to losing a branch when a storm comes through the bay. None has come down yet. The promenade it shades looks straight across the bay toward the mainland, a public garden with no entry fee and no fence around the roots.

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The Dragon Tree of Parque Genoves

Canary Islands Dragon Tree (Dracaena draco) · estimated 100 to 200 years, genuinely disputed · Santa Barbara

Cadiz used to have two famous dragon trees, then a storm took the roof off the wrong one. The Drago del Tinte, growing in a former arts and crafts school elsewhere in the city, collapsed in April 2013, leaving this specimen in Parque Genoves as the last dragon tree of any age left standing in Cadiz. Estimates for how old it actually is vary widely: the city's own parks department calls it simply centenario, over a hundred, while local guides put it as high as two hundred, and no planting record settles the question either way. What is certain is the shape, a squat grey trunk that branches only once it flowers, which for Dracaena draco can take decades, giving this specimen the umbrella silhouette that takes most dragon trees a lifetime to earn. It grows near the park's north entrance, in a garden laid out in the 19th century specifically to show off exotic imports from across the old Spanish trading network. The species itself is native to the Canary Islands and Macaronesia, not Cadiz, its sap once bottled and sold across Europe as sangre de drago, dragon's blood, a dye and a wound treatment.

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The Pohutukawa of Parque Genoves

Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) · reported as over a century, exact planting date undocumented · Santa Barbara

A tree from the opposite side of the planet turns part of Cadiz crimson every early summer. This Metrosideros excelsa, a pohutukawa native to New Zealand's coastline, blooms in May and June with a mass of red flowers so consistent that New Zealanders call the species their Christmas tree, seven months out of sync with the Southern Hemisphere's own December summer. Spanish and international sources both describe it as the oldest documented pohutukawa anywhere in Europe, over a century old, a parent to cuttings that have gone on to seed the species in gardens across the continent. City arborists took no chances after it lost a branch in a winter storm: the parks department brought in a specialist firm to run a resistograph test and sound tomography on the trunk, then fitted a support structure, and Cadiz's own planning rules now protect it as a specimen of heritage value. It grows multi-trunked from the base, a shape more shrub than tree at first glance until the size of the individual limbs corrects that impression. Parque Genoves, the 19th century garden built to display exactly this kind of imported curiosity, gives it company: a dragon tree, an ombu, and a floss silk tree share the same grounds, each from a different continent, none native to Spain.

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The Ombu of Parque Genoves

Ombu (Phytolacca dioica) · undated, cannot be aged by growth rings · Santa Barbara

This tree cannot be aged the normal way, because it does not grow the annual rings that make dating a trunk possible. Phytolacca dioica, the ombu, is technically an herbaceous plant that behaves like a tree, its trunk swollen not with wood but with water storing tissue soft enough that, unlike almost everything else in this park, it cannot be milled for lumber or dated by a cross section. What Cadiz's parks department can say is that it has stood in Parque Genoves long enough to reach a circumference of about five and a half metres and a height of nearly fifteen, a spongy grey mass of trunk that looks poured rather than grown. Native to the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, the ombu became a fixture of Spanish gardens the way palms and eucalyptus did elsewhere, brought back by a trading city that spent centuries filling its public spaces with whatever grew well in a similar climate somewhere else in the Spanish world. Its own bulk does the work other trees do with age or history: nobody needs telling this one is old, only shown its trunk. Free to see, alongside a dragon tree, a pohutukawa and a floss silk tree in the same 19th century garden.

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The Floss Silk Tree of Parque Genoves

Silk Floss Tree (Ceiba speciosa) · undated · Santa Barbara

Its name translates as the drunken stick, and one look at the trunk explains why. Ceiba speciosa, a floss silk tree from Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil, swells its bottle shaped trunk up to two metres across, studded with the conical thorns that in the wild deter animals from climbing it for water during the dry season. Cadiz's specimen grows in Parque Genoves, tucked behind the park's cafe near its fountain statue, a South American oddity planted alongside a dragon tree, a pohutukawa and an ombu in a 19th century garden built specifically to show off exactly this kind of imported curiosity. Like its neighbours, no planting record survives to date it precisely, only the trunk's own girth as evidence of age. When it flowers, usually toward autumn, the blooms come in shades of pink through white, briefly the showiest thing in a park that otherwise reads as a study in strange bark and stranger silhouettes. Free to visit, no ticket required, in a city whose 19th century merchants filled its public gardens with specimens from every port they traded through rather than sticking to anything native.

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Frequently asked

What is the oldest tree in Cadiz?: The Ficus macrophylla of the Alameda Apodaca, planted in 1903 on the seafront promenade. Parque Genoves' dragon tree may be older still, estimated at 100 to 200 years, but without a documented planting date.
Why are so many of Cadiz's trees not native to Spain?: Cadiz was one of Spain's major Atlantic trading ports for centuries, and its 19th century public gardens were built specifically to display exotic species merchants and travellers brought home, a dragon tree from the Canary Islands, a pohutukawa from New Zealand, an ombu from Argentina, a fig from India.
What happened to Cadiz's other famous dragon tree?: The Drago del Tinte, growing at a former arts and crafts school elsewhere in the city, collapsed in a storm in April 2013. The dragon tree in Parque Genoves is now the last one of any age standing in Cadiz.
Are Cadiz's remarkable trees free to see?: Yes, all of them stand in free public gardens: the seafront Alameda Apodaca and the inland Parque Genoves, both open daily with no entry fee.
More on the oldest tree: What is the oldest tree in Cadiz? The full answer, with map and directions.
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