Travel | Prof. Jeff Ollerton – ecological scientist and author

Gardening and gardens are a long-standing interest of mine, as I’ve mentioned in a few posts, such as “Harvest of evidence” and “In defence of lawns“. At the moment the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is running and medals are being awarded to gardens and plants, some of which I like, some of which I don’t: make up your own mind from this gallery of images taken around the show.

But nature often trumps us when it comes to aesthetically pleasing plant combinations. The photograph above (which you can click to see a larger version) was taken in the Anagas Mountains during our recent Tenerife Field Course. Although it’s along a roadside, these two plants have grown there spontaneously – nature as gardener! The plants are both endemic Macaronesian species: the billowy white flowers of a Canary Island sea kale (Crambe strigosa) found only on Tenerife and La Gomera, spill over the vivid yellow blooms of a large buttercup (Ranunculus cortusifolius, from the Canary Islands and the Azores).

Up close it makes for a subtle but effective combination (again, looks better if you click to open it):

The plants of Tenerife never fail to impress – here’s the Canary Island Foxglove (Isoplexis canariensis) one of the bird-pollinated plants of Tenerife that we’ve studied in the past:

This post is largely deflection behaviour to take me away from grading student dissertations. So before I return to it I’ll leave you with a gratuitous shot of three endemic Canary Island species: a woody sow thistle (Sonchus sp.) being pollinated by the Canary Island Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris canariensis), and the Canary Island Large White butterfly (Pieris cheiranthi) whose caterpillars, to take us back to the beginning, feed on Crambe strigosa:

Now, back to the coal face…..

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain,

I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end…

On Sunday I arrived back in Tenerife with my students for our annual field course. This is now my 14th trip to the island and James Taylor’s song Fire and Rain provides an apt soundtrack to some of what we’ve seen during our current stay on Darwin’s Unrequited Isle.

When we were here in 2013 the pine forest on the slopes south of Las Cañadas looked black and bare, having burned a few months previously:

Trunks of the endemic Canary Island Pine Tree (Pinus canariensis) were blackened and showed very little foliage:

That was April 2013. Twelve months later, following one of the wettest winters that Tenerife has experienced, we were greeted with a sight of rejuvenation. The pine trees are re-sprouting and the landscape is full of colour as plants such as Erysimum scoparium, Echium wildpretii and Argyranthemum tenerifae flower in abundance. There are also more butterflies that I can previously recall seeing in these habitats:

James Taylor’s song is about loss and grief; but from fire and rain also comes new life and new beginnings, a positive environmental stimulus for the endemic biodiversity of Tenerife. The fire has opened up the vegetation, allowing seeds to germinate, and the winter rain has stimulated growth and flowering in these summer-drought habitats.

….I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,

But I always thought that I’d see you again.

Prof. Jeff Ollerton – ecological scientist and author

Tag Archives: Travel

Nature as gardener (Darwin’s Unrequited Isle part 5)

Fire and rain (Darwin’s Unrequited Isle part 4)