The Olive of San Martin de Porres

The longest-lived tree on Lima's heritage register is an olive, and the studies San Isidro cites put it in the ground between 1637 and 1643, planted by the Dominican friar Martin de Porres, who was made a saint three centuries later. That is close to 390 years. A national survey of the city's heritage trees says only "over 380", so we give the band rather than pick a figure. Now consider the ground it did that on. Lima sits in coastal desert and rain here is measured in millimetres a year. Four centuries of growth on this spot happened on irrigation, channelled water and the winter fog that sits over the city for months, which means somebody has been deciding to keep this olive alive since before Peru was a country. It stands in the Bosque El Olivar, the old colonial grove of more than 1,600 olives raised from Spanish stock, immediately beside the Casa Museo Marina Nunez del Prado. The grove's founding is the grove's story; this trunk has its own, Registro 003-2020-MSI, and its own dated planting. In May 2026 Peru's national forestry service recognised the district for conserving it, which is the most recent word anyone has published on the tree and a good sign for a plant of that age.