El Huerto del Cura Garden

The historic Elche Palm Grove has the UNESCO World Heritage designation and is Europe’s only palm forest. It contains nearly 200,000 date palms (Phoenix dactylifera), some of which have grown spontaneously, although most were planted by man over the course of centuries. The unusual way in which they were laid out gave rise to many orchards (horts), nearly a hundred of which still exist. One of these is the Huerto del Cura orchard, with nearly 500 palm trees, including a specimen that is truly a botanical rarity: the one known as the "Imperial Palm".