It has been and is irrefutable witness of the history of San Cugat. All a pride for this municipality and one of the longest trees in the region of the Western Vallès. Know the curious history of Pi d'en Xandri. San Cugat del Vallès has many attractions to be a tourist destination of the first order located in the center of the province of Barcelona. Among them, a perennial, immobile, at the mercy of the wind, rain, cold and high temperatures that lurk the area during the summer. It is the
pi d'en Xandri, a large pine piñonero (in Latin, pine pinus) that can be found in the rural park of Torre Negra.According to the local chronicles, it is more than 230 years old. And it is that according to a biological analysis carried out in this monument tree, germinated in 1774. Many years have passed since how the oldest neighbor of San Cugat began to grow and see the social, political and geographical changes of this municipality. A tree that measures 23 meters, with a perimeter of 3.20 meters of trunk and a thickness of strain of 3.60 meters. Its glass reaches a width of 21 by 15 meters.Protected by the administration, it is said, that receives the name of the owner of the land where it is located, a peasant called Xandri. Whether or not this information is true, Xandri is a living history of San Cugat del Vallès.
The history of the Pi d'en Xandri
We go back to 1975 with the Metropolitan General Plan that laid the basis for the current growth of the city, which incorporated up to 170 hectares of the park where the Pi d'en Xandri, Torre Negra, is located as an unscheduled urbanizable area. With the aim of being able to be developed, ten years later the real estate company Núñez y Navarro bought 56% of Torre Negra. Situation that puts in a situation of special vulnerability and not only this park if not the same Pi d'en Xandri.In 1997 even an attempt to cut the tree and to set fire as an act of gratuitous vandalism which, fortunately, failed and thanks to extensive maintenance and support measures the pine recovered. Years before the neighbors had even mobilized showing their affection and respect to both the park and this popular pine tree, an emblem of the natural history of San Cugat del Vallès. In fact, according to the news of the time, the defense for the preservation of the popular pine caused what today is still the most multitudinous manifestation that is remembered in Sant Cugat.In recent years the Pi d'en Xandri has become a symbol of identity of Sant Cugat and in particular of citizen efforts to protect the natural environment of the municipality. Also because it is just near the road that leads to the hermitage of Sant Medir in the Collserola mountain range, another of the many attractions of the area.