A small rock in the Atlantic: 11/05/08

Poppies

We have five different poppies on La Palma.

Papaver rhoeas The red poppy.

The Corn Poppy, Field Poppy, Flanders Poppy, or Red Poppy is easily the commonest. This is the poppy that mostly grows wild in fields.

Eschscholzia Californica , the California Poppy.

The next commonest comes from California, which has a similar climate.

Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy.

And then there's the opium poppies, which are presumably garden escapes.

Argemone mexicana Mexican prickly poppy.
And finally the prickly yellow poppies, which are an invasive species that come from Mexico. These aren't nearly as easy to find.

Labels: argemone, Canaries, Canary Island flora, Canary islands, Eschscholzia Californica, La Palma, Papaver rhoeas, Papaver somniferum, Plants, poppies, poppy

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The Palmeran Violet

This is the Palmeran Violet, Viola palmensis. It only grows on La Palma, above 1,900 m. (There's a similar violet on Tenerife, but it has smaller flowers). It used to be rare, but the island government has a program of replanting areas. You can find them beside the road from Santa Cruz to the Roque de los Muchachos well above the tree line.

Labels: Canaries, Canary Island flora, Canary islands, flora, La Palma, Plants, Viola palmensis, violet

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Robert's Wall (la pared de Roberto)

This photo was taken from the viewpoint at Los Andennes, where you get a spectacular view into the Caldera.

From here you can see a dyke called La Pared de Roberto (Robert's Wall). It's about four metres high (13ft).

[Volcanic dykes are formed when moulten lava fills a crack in the rock and solidifies slowly into very hard rock called basalt. Later on the softer, surrounding rock is eroded away, leaving the harder basalt sticking out like a wall.]

The story is that Roberto was madly in love with a girl who lived the other side of the wall, and he couldn't get through. Eventually the devil appeared to him and promised to carry Roberto's body through in exchange for Roberto's soul.

Roberto was daft enough to agree.

With a great flash of light, the devil blasted a hole through the dyke and left Roberto's dead body on the far side. He'd already taken the soul.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, geology, La Palma, legends