Page 210 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Spain

208  EASTERN SP AIN

Flowers of the Matorral

The matorral, a scrubland rich in wild flowers, is the
distinctive land scape of Spain’s eastern Mediterranean
coast. It is the result of centuries of woodland clearance,
during which the native holm oak was felled for timber
and to provide land for grazing and cultivation. Many
colourful plants have adapted to the extremes of climate
here. Most flower in spring, when hillsides are daubed
with pink and white cistuses and yellow broom, and the
air is perfumed by aromatic herbs such as rosemary,
lavender and thyme. Buzzing insects feed on the
abundance of nectar and pollen.

The century plant’s Spanish broom is a small bush with
flower stalk can reach yellow flowers on slender branches.
10 m (32 ft). The black seed pods split when dry,
scattering the seeds on the ground.
Jerusalem sage, Aleppo pine Rosemary
an attractive shrub
which is often
grown in
gardens, has tall
stems surrounded
by bunches of
showy yellow
flowers. Its leaves
are greyish-white
and woolly.
Rose garlic has
round clusters
of violet or
pink flowers
at the end of
a single stalk.
It survives
the summer
as the bulb familiar to all cooks.

Common
thyme is a
Foreign Invaders low-growing
Several plants from the New World have aromatic herb,
managed to colonize the bare ground of which is
the matorral. The prickly pear, thought to widely cultivated
have been brought back by Christopher for use in
Columbus, produces a the kitchen.
delicious fruit which can
Prickly pear be picked only with The mirror orchid, a
in fruit thickly gloved hands. small plant that grows
The rapidly growing on grassy sites, is easily
century plant, a native of Mexico which distinguished from
has tough spiny leaves, sends up a tall other orchids by the
flower shoot only when it is 10–15 years brilliant metallic
old, after which it dies. blue patch inside
the lip, fringed
Flowering shoots of the century plant by brown hairs.

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