Our visit today takes us back to the Parque de Retirement and what we are looking for is found on the left side of the Parterre, a French-style garden created at the request of King Philip V according to the fashion of the time. It is a majestic, beautiful and truly beautiful tree, with its very wide trunk with a powerful crown and showy hanging leaves. It's a ahuehuete (Taxodium mucronatum) is the national tree of Mexico, a decoration it received in 1921 thanks to the fact that it is found practically anywhere in the country. The El Retiro specimen measures about 25 meters and is shaped like a candelabra, branching almost from the base into very thick branches.
Its plantation dates back to around 1630, for many it disputes the honor of being the oldest tree in Madrid with the great cypress of the Botanical Garden located very close to Retiro Park. According to popular tradition, this tree was saved from the general felling that the Park suffered when the French troops were quartered there during the Napoleonic invasion, because its trunk served as support and concealment for an artillery piece.

Ahuehuetes are abundant trees mainly in swampy areas of Mexico and the southern United States (the name ahuehuete means "old man of water" in the Aztec language), generally being trees that frequently live for more than 500 years, with specimens existing that comfortably exceed that age, as is the case of the famous Santa María del Tule Tree, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which is estimated to be more than 2.000 years old. Since pre-Hispanic times, sacred qualities have been attributed to these trees.

We love visiting Ahuehuete in our bicycle routes through El Retiro. Next to our tree we can find a sign that gives us more information about our protagonist.

A abrazo.