Cipreste Farroupilha

This cypress is on the flag of the city it grows in, on the city's coat of arms, and in its anthem. Guaíba has its reasons. On 19 September 1835, by the town's own account, Bento Gonçalves da Silva, Onofre Pires and Gomes Jardim sat in its shade and planned the attack on Porto Alegre that opened the Farroupilha Revolution, the ten-year war in which Rio Grande do Sul tried to break away from the Brazilian Empire. The tree took the revolution's name, and the square around it is named after Gomes Jardim. The story of how it got here is older and stranger. Local tradition holds that it was planted around 1680 over the grave of a Spanish army commander, killed while passing through on a cattle hunt, at a time when marking a grave with a tree was the custom. That would put it at something over 300 years, which is the figure Guaíba gives, but the date rests on oral history rather than any document, so read it as the town's memory rather than a measurement. Nobody has recorded which cypress species it is, or how thick it is, and our pin puts you in the square rather than at the trunk. If you know either, or can stand at it and tell us where it is, we would like to hear. Guaíba sits across the water from Porto Alegre, a short trip by ferry or road. The square is public and free.