The Paperbark of Jardim Constantino

Lisbon has one prickly paperbark, and this is it. The Portuguese record of Jardim Constantino calls the tree unique in the city, which is a strong claim for a garden of a quarter of a hectare to hold. Melaleuca styphelioides is an Australian tree grown for its bark: white, spongy, laid down in papery layers you can press a thumb into, peeling in sheets around a trunk 1.58 metres round. The leaves are small, stiff and sharp-tipped, which is the prickly half of the name. At 18 metres with an 11 metre crown it is the tall thin one in this garden. The fig a few steps away is the wide one. The garden opened in 1889 and takes its name from Constantino José Marques de Sampaio e Melo, a florist. It runs to a lake, a playground and a statue of Prometheus, and it sits in Arroios two streets off the metro, so this tree has spent its whole life in a city square rather than a park. It was classified in 1996, half a century after its neighbour. The register recorded 107 years when it was measured in 2017, so roughly 115 now, which would put it in the ground around 1910, a generation after the garden itself.