What is the oldest tree in Lima?
Lima's oldest tree is an olive in Bosque El Olivar in San Isidro, put in the ground between 1637 and 1643 according to the studies the district cites, which makes it close to 390 years old. It was planted by the Dominican friar Martin de Porres, canonised three centuries later. The grove is a public park, open daily and free.
Lima's heritage trees are recorded by municipal ordinance rather than by a national register, which is why the ages here come with the district attached: San Isidro under ordinance 535, Pueblo Libre under 570, Miraflores under 555. The olive is the longest-lived on that register and its date comes from studies of the grove rather than from a ring count, so treat 390 years as the studied estimate it is. What makes the number remarkable is where it stands. Lima is coastal desert with a few millimetres of rain a year, and the only reliable water is months of grey sea fog, so every old tree in this city has been kept alive by an irrigation channel or somebody's decision for as long as it has stood. The grove around this olive descends from trees brought from Seville in the 1560s and was farmed as an olive plantation for centuries before the city grew around it. Two of the other four have no recorded age at all, and we say so on their pages rather than filling the gap.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.