The Second Holm Oak of Parque Bensaúde

Two holm oaks in Parque Bensaúde were classified on the same day and recorded at the same age. One measures 3.12 metres round the trunk. This one measures 1.72. They stand about 50 metres apart in the same soil, which is a useful reminder that girth and age are only loosely related. Light, water and whatever the roots hit underground do most of the deciding. This is also the shorter of the pair at 17 metres, and it is the one you can actually put your arms around, which is the quickest way to know you have found the right tree. Holm oak is the evergreen workhorse of the Iberian countryside, dark and dense, holding its small leathery leaves right through winter. There is no bare season here and no autumn colour, so the tree looks much the same in January as in July. The park around it was the Quinta de Santo António das Frechas, a 17th century estate later held by the Bensaúde family and opened to the public as a municipal park off the Estrada da Luz. Both oaks were classified in 2004, alongside a red-flowering gum and an unusually thick field maple a short walk west. The register logged 100 years at its 2017 measurement, so roughly 110 today, on a surveyor's estimate rather than a dated planting.