The Nettle Tree of Avenida de Berlim

One tree remembers the farms that used to be here. Before Lisbon's eastward expansion in the 1940s and 1950s paved over the quintas of Olivais with apartment blocks, this stretch of land was countryside, and a single European nettle tree from that era survived the building work, still standing at what is now the junction of Avenida de Berlim and Avenida Francisco Luís Gomes. It is roughly a century old, sixteen metres tall, with a broad symmetrical canopy that looks deliberately planted rather than accidentally spared, though it was almost certainly the latter. The species produces small sweet fruit that gives it a folk nickname referencing the birds that come to eat it, and its wood was historically valued for tool handles and whip stocks for its flexibility. Officially classified as a tree of public interest, it now stands beside a bronze sculpture called Homem Sucata, Scrap Man, welded from actual car parts in 1993, an odd pairing of the area's rural past and its industrial present sharing the same traffic island. Commuters on the surrounding avenues have a much older neighbour than the surrounding tower blocks suggest.