What is the oldest tree in Palma de Mallorca?
Palma's oldest tree is S'Olivera de Cort, an olive estimated at 500 to 600 years old. It grew for most of that time on the Pedruixella Petit estate near Pollenca before being lifted whole and replanted in Placa de Cort, directly in front of the Ajuntament, on 3 May 1989. The two giant Moreton Bay figs on this list, one at the Misericordia cultural centre and one in the municipal cemetery, are far younger by comparison at 150 to 200 years. The Misericordia fig goes in around 1827, when the old General Hospital laid out a botanical garden on the site.
The Balearic government's Cataleg d'Arbres Singulars, which catalogues five of these six trees (the fig a reader found beside La Llotja is in no register), records girth, height and a rough age band for each entry rather than a precise planting date, except where local history fills the gap. S'Olivera de Cort is the exception: its 1989 transplant was a well documented civic event, covered by the local press and eventually marked with a plaque, so both its arrival date in the square and its estimated age at that point, 500 to 600 years, are on record. The two figs share a similar story to each other rather than a documented date: both were planted as part of nineteenth century garden schemes, the Misericordia specimen when the old General Hospital laid out a botanical garden around 1827, the cemetery specimen at a similar period, and both are now put at 150 to 200 years old by the register. The Lagunaria at La Llotja and the lentisco at Bellver carry measurements but no age estimate at all in the source register; the lentisco's is given only as roughly a century, based on how long the species needs to reach tree size.
One of Palma de Mallorca's trees also appears in The Autumn Harvest.