Ancient trees in Spain

Spain's great native trees are out in the countryside, in the dehesas where holm oaks stand a hundred paces apart over grazing pigs. We map 297 trees in 37 cities here. The oldest of them is Encina Tres Patas de Mendaza in Mendaza, at roughly 1,200 years, by local tradition; no ring study published.

What grows in its cities came back on ships. The ombu in Seville is from the Argentine pampas, the dragon trees are Canarian, the Moreton Bay figs are Australian and the ahuehuetes are Mexican, and they are here because Seville and Cadiz held the monopoly on trade with the Americas and captains brought seedlings home the way other people bring back souvenirs. The result is that a Spanish city garden is a record of where its ships went. It also explains the ages: most of these trees arrived with the botanical fashion of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so two hundred years is old here and five hundred is exceptional.

Every place we map in Spain

Barcelona56 trees · oldest 250 years 2

Seville44 trees · oldest 500 years 3

Valencia31 trees · oldest 400 years 4

Alicante21 trees · oldest 150 years 5

Madrid17 trees · oldest 300 years 6

Cordoba16 trees · oldest 350-450 years 7Pamplona14 trees · oldest 300-1000 years 8

Granada9 trees · oldest 440 years 9

Malaga9 trees · oldest 400 years 10

Girona7 trees · oldest 200-400 years 11Zaragoza7 trees · oldest 120-180 years 12Mallorca6 trees · oldest 500-600 years 13Menorca6 trees · oldest 400-500 years 14

Palma de Mallorca6 trees · oldest 500-600 years 15

Ronda6 trees · oldest 400-800 years 16Segovia6 trees 17

Cadiz5 trees · oldest 123 years 18Bilbao4 trees · oldest 100-150 years 19Salamanca4 trees · oldest 155 years 20

Tenerife4 trees · oldest 700-800 years 21

Tarragona3 trees · oldest 75-150 years 22

Cabeza del Buey1 tree · oldest 150-250 years 23Canicosa de la Sierra1 tree · oldest 220-280 years 24Colindres1 tree · oldest 400 years 25Eraul1 tree · oldest 500 years 26Formentera1 tree · oldest 500 years 27

Guernica1 tree · oldest ~10 years 28Ibiza1 tree · oldest 100-150 years 29La Adrada1 tree · oldest 400 years 30

Lecina1 tree · oldest 1,000 years 31

Mendaza1 tree · oldest 1,200 years 32

Millena1 tree · oldest 300 years 33

Muxika1 tree 34Navajas1 tree · oldest ~390 years 35

Ondategi1 tree 36Valentin1 tree · oldest 500 years 37Villamudria1 tree · oldest 600 years

112 species grow in Spain

Oaks Holm Oak 14 · Pedunculate Oak 6 · Mexican White Oak 2 · Pyrenean Oak 2 · Downy Oak 1 · Hartwiss Oak 1 · Portuguese Oak 1 · Sessile Oak 1 · Southern Live Oak 1

Beeches Sweet Chestnut 3

Elms and zelkovas Field Elm 4 · Caucasian Elm 2 · Siberian Elm 1

Planes London Plane 15 · Oriental Plane 1

Maples Silver Maple 1 · Sycamore 1

Chestnuts, walnuts and hazels Horse Chestnut 4 · Pecan 2 · Rehder's Wingnut 1

Figs and mulberries Moreton Bay Fig 27 · Indian Laurel Fig 6 · Osage Orange 3 · Fig 2 · Common Fig 1 · Rubber Fig 1 · White Mulberry 1

Conifers Stone Pine 9 · Aleppo Pine 6 · Ginkgo 5 · Mediterranean Cypress 5 · Norfolk Island Pine 5 · Bald Cypress 4 · European Yew 4 · Giant Sequoia 4 · Himalayan Cedar 4 · Spanish Fir 4 · Canary Pine 3 · Cedar of Lebanon 3 · Atlas Cedar 2 · Coast Redwood 2 · Spanish Black Pine 2 · Bunya Pine 1 · Cedar 1 · Cook Pine 1 · Douglas Fir 1 · Kashmir Cypress 1 · Mexican Cypress 1 · Monkey Puzzle 1 · Montezuma Cypress 1 · Morinda Spruce 1 · Turkish Pine 1

Palms Canary Island Date Palm 5 · Mexican Fan Palm 3 · Date Palm 2 · California Fan Palm 1 · Chinese Windmill Palm 1 · Senegal Date Palm 1

Fruit and blossom Olive 7 · Carob 2 · Strawberry Tree 2 · Almond-leaved Pear 1 · Common Persimmon 1

Southern hemisphere River Red Gum 6 · Dragon Tree 3 · Ombu 3 · Silk Floss Tree 3 · Bottle Tree 2 · Tasmanian Blue Gum 2 · Tipu Tree 2 · Blue Jacaranda 1 · Coast Coral Tree 1 · Coral Tree 1 · Floss Silk Tree 1 · Pohutukawa 1

More broadleaf trees Black Poplar 7 · Mediterranean Hackberry 7 · Judas Tree 4 · Bitter Orange 3 · Mastic Tree 3 · Norfolk Island Hibiscus 3 · Southern Magnolia 3 · Avocado 2 · Black Locust 2 · Camphor Tree 2 · Japanese Pagoda Tree 2 · Narrow-Leaved Ash 2 · River She-oak 2 · Silky Oak 2 · Barbary Thuja 1 · Bougainvillea 1 · Cardón 1 · Chinaberry 1 · European Ash 1 · European Fan Palm / Saint Peter's Palm 1 · Grapefruit 1 · Green Ash 1 · Honey Locust 1 · Hornbeam 1 · Horsetail Casuarina 1 · Japanese Cheesewood 1 · Jujube 1 · Longleaf Pepper Tree 1 · Peruvian Pepper 1 · Phoenician Juniper 1 · Pineapple Guava 1 · Sago Palm 1 · Silk Tree 1 · Tree of Heaven 1 · Tree Yucca 1 · Viscote 1 · Yellow Poinciana 1