The Elm of the Paseo de la Castellana

Madrid's own green guide calls this elm the oldest street tree in the city. It has not held the title for long. The guide says it passed to this tree only after the city lost the last two street trees that were older. It grows on the Paseo de la Castellana, opposite the Hotel Villa Magna. The Castellana is the northern extension of the Prado and Recoletos promenades, an axis the guide says was completed in 1834. That date belongs to the boulevard, not to the tree, and nobody we can find has published when the elm went in. The Ayuntamiento's Guia Verde de Madrid, published in 2026, measures it at 18 metres tall and 380 centimetres round the trunk, with a crown 14 metres across. Under Madrid's 1997 Plan General de Ordenacion Urbana it is protected as a singular tree. Two things are still open. The guide names the species only as olmo, elm, without saying which elm. And it gives no planting year or age. If you know either, tell us. Our pin sits at the hotel's address, Paseo de la Castellana 22, rather than on the trunk itself, so look opposite the hotel for an elm close to four metres round. It is a street tree, free to see at any hour.