The Moreton Bay Fig at St. Johns Presbyterian Church

Los Angeles has protected this fig as Historic-Cultural Monument No. 19 since 1963, which makes it older on the city's list than most of the buildings on it. The tree is older still. It was planted in 1875 by the Smith family to shade their cottage on the La Ballona ranch, by one account in honour of their first son, and it stood alone in farmland for close to ninety years before the Presbyterian church complex went up around it in 1962. That makes it one of the two oldest documented tree plantings in the city, level with the figs at the old Plaza downtown and older than every other Moreton Bay fig on this list. Its modern history is a slow argument with the power company, which has cut into the crown repeatedly over the years to keep the overhead lines clear. The tree has absorbed it and kept spreading over the corner of National Boulevard and Military Avenue. You can see it from the public sidewalk at any time. For a closer look the church grounds are open on weekday mornings and Sunday. No girth or height figure has been published for it, which for a tree this size is a gap worth closing: if you measure it, tell us. The pin marks the church corner rather than the trunk.