What is the oldest tree in Menorca?
The oldest tree on Menorca is the Alzina d'Alfuri de Dalt, a holm oak of roughly 400 to 500 years standing in a wood of old holm oaks beside the car park for Cala del Pilar beach, on the north coast in the municipality of Ciutadella. It is free: park at the beach car park, walk into the adjoining wood, and the Cami de Cavalls coastal path passes the same spot.
That age comes from the Balearic government's own catalogue of singular trees, which states 400 to 500 years directly rather than calling the tree old and leaving it there, and a second survey of the island's catalogued trees repeats the figure. It is a striking claim for a holm oak in the Balearics, and the tree does not look it: ten metres tall, 3.9 metres round at chest height, wide and low rather than tall. It grows on sandy soil over a fossil dune, in a wood of other centuries-old holm oaks, on land the state expropriated in 1999. Nothing else on the island comes close on age. The other three catalogued trees here are all in the 100 to 150 year range, so the oak leads by three centuries. Go with your eyes open: the register records structural damage, low vitality and dieback in the top of the crown, and no fresher condition check has been published. If you find it in better or worse shape than that, tell us.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.