Moreton Bay Fig Tree

In a tiny park beside the Amtrak station stands one of the largest Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) trees in the United States. The trunk is a knot of buttress roots; the canopy spreads to more than 50 metres in diameter, supported by aerial roots dropping back down to the ground.

It is free to visit and takes ten minutes. The tree is most photogenic with a person standing inside its root system to give a sense of scale. The City has fenced and protected it after some root damage; you can walk all the way around but not into the trunk.

things to do sight
A story
An Australian seafarer gave a small sapling to a young Santa Barbara girl in 1876; she planted it near the train station and walked away. The tree she left behind is now over 150 years old, its canopy spread to 53 metres across — wide enough that 10,000 people could supposedly stand under it at once.

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