The Park Palm

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Leisure · Subcategory: Singular trees

This beautiful, spectacular and slender Canary Island palm ( Phoenix canariensis ) is popularly known by the people of Santa Cruz as the Park Palm, although it is not located within the grounds of García Sanabria Park, but nearby, on Méndez Núñez street, in a small square surrounded by buildings where several streets converge.

Possibly, the palm has been there long before García Sanabria Park became a reality, which did not happen until the 1930s. The palm was located in an area that was once clearly agricultural, with orchards, terraces and even an old fountain known as "Chorro de los Caballos", and today remains as one of the last wild plant witnesses that survive in Santa Cruz. 

Its slender figure exceeds 20 metres in height, with a trunk whose perimeter measures just over 3 metres.

Until a little over forty years ago, this palm, like others in the city, was "guarapeada" by a person nicknamed precisely "Guarapo", a popular character in the city, whose humble home was located in the now disappeared gardens of the castle that was once the Quisisana hotel, currently Escuelas Pías school. He was a man of small stature and almost hermit-like life who took care of pruning palms, collecting their dates and obtaining the guarapo (sap that flows from the palm heart). For this he was endowed with incredible skill and ability, combined with great courage, given the height of the specimens he climbed with the only help of a rope and his strong bare feet.

The Park Palm is a landmark in the urban landscape of the city. Today we find it closing, on the opposite side to García Sanabria Park, a small square equipped with a sculptural fountain named after Fernando Pessoa.

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