Almond Blossom Already

The almond trees have blossomed early this year. I had an excursion from a cruise ship on Thursday and saw that the almond trees are already blossoming in Garafía and Puntagorda after our exceptionally warm winter. As usual, it’s gorgeous, but I couldn’t get any photos while working on a moving bus. So after working at the observatory on Sunday morning I drove down the Garafía side with my DSLR….

January 20, 2016
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Wild Peas

Wild peas, Pisum sativum in Breña Alta
May 22, 2015

  These are wild peas, Pisum sativum. They grow all over the island, and very pretty they are too. The flowers are edible, but I don’t know if the peas themselves are. Certainly sweet peas are poisonous.

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Tower of Flowers

Blue tower of jewels (Echium webbi) Breña Baja, La Palma, Canary Islands
May 20, 2015

  Because La Palma is an island, the plants here evolved in isolation, and many of them are unique to the island, or to the Canaries. One of my favourites is the Tower of Jewels — Tajinaste in Spanish and in Latin, the Echium genus. It’s related to borage, and most species have a big spike with hundreds of tiny flowers. The most spectacular is Echium wildpretii, which really is…

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Tower of Jewels

Blue tower of jewels (Echium webbi) Breña Baja, La Palma, Canary Islands
May 26, 2011

  Because La Palma is an island, the plants here evolved in isolation, and many of them are unique to the island, or to the Canaries. One of my favourites is the Tower of Jewels — Tajinaste in Spanish and in Latin, the Echium genus. It’s related to borage, and most species have a big spike with hundreds of tiny flowers. The most spectacular is Echium wildpretii, which really is…

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