Azinheira de Alportel

A holm oak beside a row of petrol pumps came second in Portugal's Tree of the Year vote in 2023. The Azinheira de Alportel stands on the EN 2 where it runs through São Brás de Alportel, at Poço dos Ferreiros, and 2,879 people voted for it. Only the Eucalipto de Contige drew more. The town council, which put it forward, makes its case on company rather than size. Generations have gathered round this tree on the old road, and the council lists it as a stop on the Rota da EN2, for people driving that road. It was entered again for Tree of the Year 2025. The state noticed it long before the voters did. Portugal's forest service classified it as a Tree of Public Interest in 1942, by the register's date; one newspaper gives 1964, which we have not confirmed. When the service measured it in 2006 it recorded 17 metres of height, a crown 26 metres across and a trunk 4.9 metres round, and put its age at about 250 years. That is an estimate, not a count of rings, so read it as somewhere between 200 and 300. Other sources give the girth as 5 metres, 4.1 metres and, in the 2024 nomination, 10 metres, probably measured lower on the trunk. It is a roadside tree, free to see, close to the town's bus terminal. Our pin is approximate, and we have no photograph of it yet. If you stand under it, send us one.