The Magnolia of Casa Tait

The base of this southern magnolia measures more than six metres around, thick enough that it would take several adults linking arms to circle it. It grows in the same grounds as Casa Tait's protected tulip tree, inside the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal, and like its neighbour it was formally classified a tree of public interest on 21 May 2021, a status that turns deliberate damage to it into a legal offence rather than simply bad manners. Magnolia grandiflora is native to the southeastern United States, prized in European gardens since the 18th century for its glossy, leathery leaves and dinner-plate-sized white flowers, which release a lemon-and-vanilla scent strong enough to notice from several metres away. Late summer is when this specimen puts on its best show, its last flush of blooms opening just as most of the garden's spring flowering has finished elsewhere. Casa Tait's grounds, now folded into the wider Palácio de Cristal park, once belonged to the Tait family, British port wine merchants whose 19th-century money planted much of what still grows here. The magnolia, like the tulip tree beside it, has outlasted the family's ownership by generations.