The Himalayan Cedar of Palacete Burmester
Lordelo do Ouro e Massarelos
Portugal's national register of protected trees lists one Himalayan cedar in the whole of Porto, and it is not the one in the Palacio de Cristal gardens. It is this one, in a small university garden on Rua do Campo Alegre, beside the Palacete Burmester, the house the University of Porto now runs as the Casa dos Livros. When the forest service measured it in 2020 it stood 23.5 metres tall, with a trunk 3.4 metres round and a crown 17.5 metres across. It was classified in one round with three neighbours in the same garden, a horse chestnut, a tulip tree and a yew. Four protected trees in one small garden looks like somebody planting with intent. No source names who, or when. That silence runs all the way through. The register left the age column empty, and the city council's announcement of the classification gives no date either. A trunk of 3.4 metres says this cedar is mature. It does not say how mature, so this page prints no number, and the 2020 measurement is the latest anyone has published about it. The garden sits on the Faculty of Sciences campus, a few hundred metres east of the Jardim Botanico do Porto, and no opening hours for it have been published. If you know when the Burmester garden was planted, or have an old photograph of this tree, tell us.
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Getting there
Jardim do Palacete Burmester ('Casa dos Livros'), grounds of the Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, Porto
You can recognise it as the only cedar among the four protected trees here, 23.5 metres tall with a trunk 3.4 metres round. It stands in the Jardim do Palacete Burmester, with a horse chestnut, a tulip tree and a yew.
Garden of the Palacete Burmester (Casa dos Livros) on the University of Porto Faculty of Sciences campus, Rua do Campo Alegre. Same garden as the horse chestnut and the yew of Palacete Burmester; no opening hours have been published for the garden itself.
STCP bus to Rua do Campo Alegre; the garden is a few hundred metres east of the Jardim Botanico do Porto.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
- In the official register: ICNF Arvoredo de Interesse Publico, processo AIP13121886I
- ICNF national register of Arvoredo de Interesse Publico, processo AIP13121886I (): cedro-do-himalaia, girth 3.4 m, height 23.5 m, crown 17.5 m, las…
- ambiente.cm-porto.pt
