The Ombu of the Municipal Garden

The fattest thing in this garden is not a tree. Phytolacca dioica, which Madeirans call bela-sombra, beautiful shade, is a giant herb out of the South American pampas: the swollen grey base that makes one look ancient is soft water-storing tissue rather than timber, it folds outward into what look like roots halfway up, and it grows fast enough that bulk says very little about years. Funchal's list of monumental trees carries this one as code 305, from a table the municipality drew off a 2008 regional survey of the island's remarkable trees. No age, no girth, no height. The garden around it earns the detour on its own. The Jardim Municipal opened in 1885 as the Jardim Dona Amelia on the ground of the old Convento de Sao Francisco, and those 8,300 square metres of former Franciscan enclosure are now a free public park in the middle of the city, gates reported open round the clock. Rua Ivens runs along the top of it. One warning. The same garden holds a second monumental tree, a camphor, and both come through on the same map point, so you may meet the wrong one first. The soft grey non-wood is how you know you have the ombu. Nobody has dated either of them, and if you know when this one went in, tell us.