The Caucasian Elm of the Botanic Garden

Measured against every other tree in the Royal Botanic Garden, this one wins on height, reaching by some counts over 30 metres in the garden's north zone along the Paseo de Mutis, tall enough that garden staff and visiting botanists disagree on the exact figure by several metres depending on measurement method. The species itself, Zelkova carpinifolia, comes from mountain forests spanning Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran, and only reached European gardens in the 18th century as part of the same wave of scientific plant collecting that filled Madrid's garden with foreign specimens under royal sponsorship. This particular tree is roughly two centuries old, meaning it has spent essentially its entire life as the garden's tallest resident, a distinction the fast-growing species tends to earn early and keep. It carries singular tree designation number 260 in the Community of Madrid's regional catalogue, one number among 280 protected specimens across the wider region.