In fruit
The city register counts fourteen.
Canary Island Date Palm
Phoenix canariensis
Every Canary Island date palm on the French Riviera arguably descends from one garden on Nice's eastern port, where Baron Vigier is said to have acclimatised the species in France for the first time in 1864. We map 10 of them, in 7 cities.
That rests on the garden's own preservation society rather than on any independent record, so take it as the claim it is. The species is easy to admire and impossible to date, because a palm lays down no growth rings to count. Valencia's Palacio de Pineda has a construction date to the year, 1728 to 1731, and its palm has nothing at all; you can order a coffee under it. Barcelona's double row along the Vil.la Amelia avenue produces its own small disagreement, since the city register counts fourteen palms and the garden's chronicler counts fifteen. Valencia's other three stand in a row so recognisable that a bar took their nickname.
Barcelona
San Francisco
Thirteen Canary Island date palms line the median of Quesada Avenue in the Bayview, and San Francisco counts all thirteen as one Landmark Tree.
The city's landmark list names this one block of Dolores Street twice.
Krakow
Poland's oldest palm tree lives indoors in Krakow, in a greenhouse used for concerts in summer.
Valencia
You can order a coffee under this one.
Three palms standing together at the entrance to a single street have become a landmark specific enough to have lent their nickname to nearby shops and a bar.
The beetle killing palms along this avenue prefers this palm's species.
Bilbao
More than forty species of tree grow inside the walls of a Bilbao almshouse.
Nice
Every Phoenix canariensis lining a promenade or a hotel driveway anywhere in France arguably traces back to one estate on Nice's eastern port.
Photo: CHRIS230 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Cork
A palm tree growing outdoors on an island in Cork Harbour, at the same latitude as Newfoundland, is the clearest single demonstration of what the Gulf Stream does for this stretch of Irish coast.
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