Mexico flew this cactus to Seville. It was the country's gift to Spain for Expo '92, picked from the most slender giants in the Valle de los Gigantes in Baja California, and taking it turned into a political row. Digging started on 14 December 1991. People in the area protested, the dispute reached the state congress, and work stopped in January before resuming a month later. The fuss left something behind: the valley was declared a sanctuary for its cardones and is protected today. The cactus came out of the ground with about ten metres of roots, in a steel cage lifted by three cranes, rode a thirty-wheel trailer to Hermosillo and flew via Miami, landing in Seville on 23 March 1992. Seville's tree catalogue adds that one of the men supervising the move was shut inside the plane and arrived in Spain with it. It was planted beside Mexico's pavilion and is still there, 11.7 metres tall when the city measured it in 2022, on a base 2.3 metres round. Steel props now hold it up, and since 2017 paving has replaced the garden around it, which heritage groups say starves the roots. How old is it? A reader who sent us this cactus puts it at 200 to 300 years. The city catalogue and the Spanish press repeat 1,500, without saying how anyone counted.
Calle Tomás Alva Edison, corner of Calle Johannes Kepler, Isla de la Cartuja, 41092 SevillaYou can recognise it by its bundle of tall, ribbed green columns rising from one trunk, held by rusty steel props in a gravel bed. It stands on the paved corner of Calle Tomás Alva Edison and Calle Johannes Kepler.
Free, on an open paved corner beside the street, no gate or opening hours. The city catalogue lists the ground as privately owned, but nothing stands between the pavement and the cactus.
On Isla de la Cartuja, about 25 minutes on foot from the old centre over the Pasarela de la Cartuja; TUSSAM buses C1 and C2 serve the island.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
- In the official register: Inventario de Arboles Singulares de la Ciudad de Sevilla (Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, 2022), no. ficha 27
- Inventario de Arboles Singulares de la Ciudad de Sevilla (2022), Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, ficha 27
- sevillasecreta.co
- ecoticias.com
