A sailor brought it from Australia as a seedling in 1876, and it went into the ground on this corner soon after. Santa Barbara Beautiful credits Adeline Crabb with planting it in 1877; the city's parks page gives 1876. Either way it has had about 150 years, and by the city's measure its trunk is now about 45 feet around. Santa Barbara Beautiful puts it at about 75 feet tall with a crown more than 175 feet across, and calls it the widest tree of its kind in the continental United States, though a fig in Glendora has since grown taller. The city made it a historic landmark in 1970, and the ground was deeded to the city in 1976, so it now stands in a small park of its own, named after it. Its roots run far out from the trunk and a barrier keeps feet off them, so this is a tree you walk around rather than under, looking up from the paths at the edge. It is right beside the Amtrak station and a few minutes from State Street, which makes it the natural start of a short downtown walk. The pepper tree in front of City Hall, the five lemon-scented gums at the Central Library and the dragon tree in Alameda Park are all within about a mile and a half, and none of them needs a ticket.
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Getting there
101 W Montecito St (corner Chapala St), Santa Barbara, CA 93101
The huge buttressed fig filling the corner of Chapala and Montecito Streets beside the train station, its crown wider than the lot it stands in.
Free; city-owned park (Moreton Bay Fig Tree park) open to the public; roots protected, so you view from the paths and fence line. Paid parking on site.
Santa Barbara Amtrak station is beside it; MTD buses on State St; 5 min walk from State Street downtown
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.