The Paineira of Jardim Alfredo Keil

Every October this tree turns a small garden pink. The silk floss tree in Jardim Alfredo Keil is one of six individually classified specimens within a nine tree ensemble that the city declared collectively of public interest in 2017, a South American species whose thorny green trunk and cotton candy coloured blooms have become an unofficial marker of autumn across Lisbon in recent years. The garden itself, laid out in 1882 on the former site of the Feira da Ladra flea market before that market moved to Alfama, is barely large enough to contain the tree's crown, and a bust of the composer Alfredo Keil, who wrote the melody that became Portugal's national anthem, watches from one corner. No source isolates exactly how old this particular paineira is, since the 2017 classification covers the whole collection of trees rather than dating each specimen individually. The fruit that follows the flowers splits open to release seeds wrapped in a silky white floss, once used to stuff pillows and life jackets, a soft, practical footnote to a tree that spends every autumn putting on the loudest show in the neighbourhood.