The Giant Plane of the Agriculture Gardens

At thirty-seven metres this is the tallest tree in Cordoba's own catalogue of singular trees, and it stands in the city's oldest public garden, opened on the first of March 1811 by a mayor who had spent years travelling the Islamic world disguised as a Syrian prince. The trunk measures nearly four metres around and widens to over five at the base, which is what a plane does when nothing has hurried it. Cordobans do not call this place the Agriculture Gardens. They call it Los Patos, after the duck pond, and they have done so for generations. The tree rings a small central plaza together with several other big planes, so the one to look for is the tallest, the one whose crown disappears above the others when you stand underneath. The gardens were reorganised in 1864 and bought outright by the council in 1866, so the ground has been public for a hundred and sixty years, which in a city that keeps its best trees behind walls is worth something. A plane's autumn in Andalusia is a dull brown, so come for the size, not the season.