The Holm Oak of the Trillo Roundabout

Roads converge on this tree rather than around it. The Glorieta del Trillo, where the Carretera de Somosaguas, the Paseo de los Castanos and the Camino de Rodajos all meet inside Casa de Campo, is named for the holm oak growing at its centre, a roughly 300 year old specimen with a crown 18.5 metres across and a trunk 4.6 metres around. Casa de Campo itself was a royal hunting estate from the 16th century until 1931, when the Second Republic opened it to the public, which means this oak spent roughly two centuries of its life on private land reserved for the Spanish crown's deer and boar hunts rather than growing in anything resembling a public park. Holm oaks are Iberia's signature evergreen, slow growing and built to survive exactly the hot, dry summers and cold winters Madrid delivers, and this one has outlasted the hunting estate, the monarchy that owned it, and the Republic that opened the gates, still marking the same road junction today.