The Dragon Tree of Campo da Barca

A register of the singular trees of Macaronesia chose this one for its size, and gives its height as five and a half metres. The register does not reconcile the two, and neither will we. It measured the trunk at 2.52 metres round at the base and called it a magnificent specimen standing on its own. It is the only dragon tree in the Jardim do Campo da Barca, and Funchal's municipal plan lists it too, under code 256. The garden is small. Its south part dates from 1818 and the city has run it since 1897. Three thousand square metres, cut in two by the Estrada Conde Carvalhal, with the Largo Conde Canavial to the north and the Praça de Tenerife to the south. Portuguese Wikipedia calls the dragon tree the most emblematic tree in it. It has outlasted at least one neighbour. In November 2021 a tree came down in this garden, and the press named it as a Mediterranean hackberry. The dragon tree is still there, logged by visitors on iNaturalist as recently as December 2025. Our pin marks the garden, not the crown, because no source places the trunk exactly. With one dragon tree in a garden this size that costs you a minute, and in June 2026 the council put up new bilingual signs naming the monumental trees here. And nobody has dated it. The 1818 garden says nothing about when this tree went in. If you know, tell us.