The Fan Palm of the Cenador del León

Europe's only native palm usually grows as a low, multi-stemmed clump under two or three metres, more shrub than tree. This one, in the garden around the Alcázar's Cenador del León pavilion, has reached 7.2 metres, tall enough and old enough that Seville's survey of singular trees gave it a place on the list, an unusual honour for a species that spends most of its life as scrub on Mediterranean hillsides. The city's 2022 assessment recorded it in optimal condition throughout, physiology, structure and plant health all clean. Chamaerops humilis is genuinely wild across southern Spain, Portugal and North Africa, tolerant of drought and poor soil in a way most ornamental palms are not, which is likely part of why a specimen given a long undisturbed run in a palace garden has grown so much larger than its usual roadside or scrubland relatives. The Cenador del León, a domed viewing pavilion, gives its name to the garden around it, where this palm and a second catalogued tree both grow within the same walled space.