For part of Fortaleza, a baobab in the city's oldest public square is more than a tree. The Candomblé community venerates it as sacred, an orixá, and before the pandemic the local paper counted around 400 visitors a day. A newspaper feature dates its planting to 1910, by a descendant of the nineteenth-century Senador Pompeu, though an older, conflicting story claims it was brought from Algeria in 1872. What is certain is its protection: a 1951 municipal decree made it illegal to fell, and it has stood untouchable in the Passeio Público ever since.
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Baobá do Passeio Público
Baobab (Adansonia digitata) · about 115 years · Centro, Fortaleza
For part of Fortaleza, the baobab in the Passeio Público is more than a tree. The city's Candomblé community venerates it as sacred, an orixá, and before the pandemic the local paper O Povo counted around 400 visitors a day.
By baobab standards it is young. O Povo dates its planting to 1910, by Thomaz Pompeu de Sousa Brasil Filho, son of the nineteenth-century Senador Pompeu, and marked its 115th birthday in June 2026. A man describing himself as the senator's great-great-grandson named the same planter independently. The same paper's 2021 feature told a different story, that the tree was brought from Algeria in 1872. Both cannot be true. The 1910 date has more behind it, but the older version still circulates.
So does a darker one: that Bárbara de Alencar was executed at this tree. She died in 1832, long before either date anyone gives for a baobab in this square, so treat it as folklore rather than history.
What is documented is the protection. Municipal Decree 30.052, signed on 4 October 1951, made it illegal to fell the tree, so it has been legally untouchable for three quarters of a century while the historic centre changed around it. It stands in Praça dos Mártires, the oldest public square in Fortaleza, open like any city plaza. Our pin puts you in the square rather than at the trunk.
Nobody has published a measurement of that trunk. If you have taped it, tell us.
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