The Almez of Parque Bruil

In December 2025 this tree came third in Spain, with 1,799 votes, in a national poll for tree of the year. It was put forward not by the city but by the neighbourhood associations of San Agustin, Tenerias, La Madalena, Las Fuentes and San Miguel, which is a fair description of who actually uses the park. It is a hackberry, called almez or litonero here, fifteen metres tall and just over four metres round at chest height. What it grew up in is the interesting part. Juan Bruil, a Zaragoza banker who was briefly finance minister in 1854, bought the old Augustinian estate here in 1842 and had French gardeners lay out grounds around it. He stocked them with deer, pheasants, swans and monkeys, built an auditorium and commissioned a roller coaster, and let the public in on Sundays. The city did not own the land until 1959, and the park as it stands opened in 1965. The tree has had a harder recent decade than that history suggests: in 2015 residents asked the council to look at it because feet had compacted the soil over its roots, and in 2017 it was fenced. It now looks the better for it.