Pohutukawa

Metrosideros excelsa covers itself in scarlet brushes at the height of the southern summer, which in Cadiz, Lisbon, Porto, Sintra and Madeira falls half a year off its native schedule and a hemisphere from home. At home it grows on sea cliffs, gripping rock with aerial roots, which is close to what the Atlantic edge of Iberia offers it. The Monserrate tree in Sintra is the oldest here, though nobody will pin it closer than somewhere between 175 and 275 years. Porto's pair on the grass at Passeio Alegre stand eleven metres apart and are barely taller than a house. Lisbon's two, in the Jardim da Parada, are ten metres apart and protected as separate trees. Funchal's grows in the Quinta do Palheiro Ferreiro, a garden that holds nine more listed trees.