Monchique maps three trees, all classified by Portugal's forest service: a plane 41 metres tall beside a watermill in the Barranco dos Pisoes, a Norfolk Island pine of 36.5 metres on the terrace of the municipal park, and a Monchique oak, a species critically endangered in Portugal, on the EN 267 towards Alferce. The village sits high in the Serra de Monchique, about an hour and a half from Lagos by bus with a change in Portimao.
0 of 3 visited in MonchiqueSee your full collection
London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia) · 150 years · Monchique
Portugal's forest service measures this plane tree at 41 metres, and it grows at the bottom of a stream valley beside an old watermill. The state classified it as a Tree of Public Interest in 1947, and the register's other numbers keep pace with the height. The trunk is 5.1 metres round and the crown spreads 26 metres across.
Its age is a rounder figure. When the forest service measured the tree in 2006 it gave 150 years, which would make it about 170 now, and the town's list of protected trees and the trail leaflet both repeat the 150. Nobody has published a ring count, so read it as somewhere between 120 and 180.
The Serra de Monchique has had a rough few years. In August 2018 a wildfire burned through Monchique. This tree, down in the damp of the Barranco dos Pisoes, was recorded alive in July 2026.
It marks the entrance to the Barranco dos Pisoes leisure area, beside the Poucochinho mill, and the PR4 Trilho dos Moinhos, the waymarked walk of the mills, passes right by it. From the Sao Sebastiao square in the middle of Monchique it is about two kilometres on foot, free and open on public tracks. Our pin is the register's coordinate rather than a fix taken at the trunk, so trust the mill more than the dot.
Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) · 150 years · Monchique
The tree you can see from all over Monchique did not come from these hills. It is a Norfolk Island pine, a conifer whose wild home is one small island in the South Pacific, and here it rises 36.5 metres over the terrace of the Quinta da Vila, in the village's municipal park.
Portugal made it a Tree of Public Interest in 1993. The forest service measured it in 2006 at 4.1 metres round the trunk, with a crown 19 metres across, and gave its age as 150 years. That is an estimate rather than a planting record, and we have found no source that says who brought it here or when, so take it as roughly 120 to 180 years.
Do not mix it up with its neighbour in the register. Monchique has a second classified araucaria, at the Quinta do Viador, which the forest service puts taller still at 44 metres. This one stands on the park terrace.
The most recent sighting we found, from May 2025, was close to the register's point but not certainly this trunk. If you have stood under it lately, tell us. The park is free and a few minutes on foot from the Sao Sebastiao square; we did not find published opening hours. Our pin is the register's coordinate, so look for the terrace and then look up.
Algerian Oak (Quercus canariensis) · 150 years · Monchique, EN 267
Portugal's forest service has classified two Monchique oaks as Trees of Public Interest, and one of them grows on the edge of a national road. The species is rare enough to matter. In Portugal it grows wild only in the Serra de Monchique and the Mira basin, and it is listed there as critically endangered. Locally it goes by the town's own name, carvalho-de-monchique; botanists call it Quercus canariensis.
This one stands at kilometre 32.82 of the EN 267, the road from Monchique east towards Alferce, about a kilometre out of the centre. It was classified in 1993. When the register measured it in 2006 it stood 25 metres tall, 3.1 metres round, with a crown 23 metres wide, almost as broad as it is high. The register's age is 150 years, the same round figure it gives the town's classified plane and araucaria, so treat it as an estimate somewhere between 120 and 180.
Two things we could not settle. Nobody we found has recorded this trunk alive recently; a 2026 sighting near the register's point was not confirmed as this tree. And we did not establish a safe place to stop. It is a roadside view, and walking out from the village means walking the road itself, with no footpath. Our pin is the register's coordinate on the road line.
If you have seen it standing, tell us.