Ticket needed. Paid entry to the botanical garden (around 3 euros), open daily 09:00-18:00, closed 1 January, Good Friday and 25 December.
El Gran Ficus
roughly 150 years, planted in the 1870sMoreton Bay Figpin approximate
This tree keeps adding trunks. El Gran Ficus drops aerial roots from its branches, and the ones that reach the ground thicken, stiffen and set as columns, so what began as a single Moreton Bay fig is now a colonnade about 30 metres high that visitors walk into rather than around. It is the youngest tree on this list by centuries. The garden's Swiss head gardener Hermann Wildpret, in post from 1860 to 1893, planted it in the 1870s, which makes it roughly 150 years old; one guide puts it at about 200 without naming a planting date, and the documented planting is the better bet. The garden itself is far older, founded by royal order of Carlos III in 1788 and inaugurated in 1792 to acclimatise tropical plants to a European climate, so the fig is a latecomer to its own address by a century. Sources disagree on the fine print of what it is, some naming the Lord Howe Island form of the species rather than the mainland Australian one; nobody has settled it, and if you know, tell us. The garden is compact, about two hectares, and charges a few euros, but this is not a specimen you have to hunt for once you are through the gate.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. Central Puerto de la Cruz, walkable from the town centre, with a local bus stop 'Jardin Botanico' right outside. Between the island's three stops, a car is the realistic way.
The pin marks the right spot roughly, not the tree itself. It stands here, but we have not confirmed the precise position on the ground yet. Know exactly where it is?
- Species
- Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla)
- Age estimate
- roughly 150 years, planted in the 1870s
- Location
- Jardin Botanico de Puerto de la Cruz (Jardin de Aclimatacion de La Orotava), Calle Retama 2, Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife (El Botanico, Puerto de la Cruz)
- Access
- Paid entry to the botanical garden (around 3 euros), open daily 09:00-18:00, closed 1 January, Good Friday and 25 December.
- Getting there
- Central Puerto de la Cruz, walkable from the town centre, with a local bus stop 'Jardin Botanico' right outside. Between the island's three stops, a car is the realistic way.
Trees nearby
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
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