The Cypress of the Royal Botanic Garden

This cypress has stood on the Plano de la Flor terrace since before the Royal Botanic Garden moved to its current site. King Carlos III relocated the garden here in 1781, transplanting an existing scientific collection to sit beside his new Prado promenade, and this cypress, already growing or planted around that time, has outlasted every institutional change since: French occupation during the Peninsular War, a 19th century closure and near-abandonment, and a 20th century restoration that returned the garden to something close to its original Enlightenment-era design. At 32 metres it is both the oldest and the tallest tree in a garden that exists specifically to hold record specimens, and its trunk, a metre and a half across, has grown thick enough that the tree is now folded into the Paisaje de la Luz, Landscape of Light, the cultural corridor linking the Prado, the botanic garden and the Retiro that UNESCO named a World Heritage Site in 2021.