Wild Flowers of the Canary Islands

My father was a professional botanist, and he went into ecstasies over the wild flowers on La Palma. He was even fascinated by the roadside weeds. You see, because it’s an island, the plants evolved in isolation, and in many cases the plant on La Palma is a different sub-species from the plant in neighbouring Tenerife. For example, echium wildipretti is a very tall cone of tiny flowers. The sub-species on La Palma has blue flowers, but the one on Tenerife has pink ones.

Anyone keen on plants will want a book to identify them. This was my father’s favourite. The catch is that it was published in 1974 and it’s out of print, but Amazon currently has a couple of second hand copies of this edition.

I’ll be quite honest. If you buy through this link, I get a small commission, but it doesn’t cost you any more.

Posted by sheila

Sheila came to La Palma with a six month contract and has stayed 24 years so far. She used to work as a software engineer at the observatory, but now she's a writer and Starlight guide.