The Peruvian Pepper of the Jardim de Palhais

The Peruvian pepper is the weeping cousin of the tree on the avenue nearby, and the two together make a small lesson in how the same idea arrived in Europe twice. This one is Andean, it was carried back by the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and the Inca used its fruit for a fermented drink and its resin for embalming. What it looks like is a willow that took a wrong turn: long drooping compound leaves on branches that hang almost to the ground, so from underneath it forms a green tent. Crush a leaf and it smells sharply of pepper, which is the family trait, and in autumn it carries loose pink drupes on strings. At around a hundred and two years it is among the older trees in Setubal, and it stands alone in a small garden in Sao Sebastiao, off the line of the main walk. One honest caveat: this is the only tree on this page that the parish route does not cover, because the garden sits in a different parish, so it rests on the national register alone.