Canary Island Pine Trees Find a Home

Canary Island Pines in front of Mount Teide. Photo: jimmyroq

The University of California, Berkeley is the oldest of the UC campuses and serves as the flagship of California's public university system.

There's a Special Report by Ron Sullivan this week in local newspaper, the Berkeley Daily Planet about Canary Island pines at Berkeley, some of which can be spotted in groups around the UC campus. They and a number of other Canary Island native species are certainly a long way from their original home!

Of course, you can see the Canary Island Pine (Pinus canariensis) in it's native habitat here in Tenerife.

Sullivan mentions the denseness of the red heartwood of these trees - so dense it sinks in water - and to see an example of the uses this wood is put to, look at these Heartwood Cloisters at the former Fransiscan convent in Garachico.

The role of these pines in the water cycle, catching rain and driving it down to the underground galleries, is indeed an important one. You really don't begin to understand how important trees are, until you see this process modelled, which you can do at the former plantation, Bananera - Jardines del Atlantico (at Busanada, Nr Los Cristianos).

For my money, this friendly little park and garden should be at the very top of any visitors' list of places to see in the south of Tenerife, because, once you have done so, you will have a much greater appreciation for everything else you visit later.

As for birding. Well, I can think of nowhere better than the Parque Rural de Teno and here in the El Palmar valley - where I am serenaded by hundreds of native canaries daily as well as spotting a huge variety of other small birds and birds of prey (my friend jokes that I have become a "regular twitcher").

And, of course, this valley is also one of the last places to see the Phoenix canariensis, Canary Island date palms at home.

NB: For a high resolution version of the above image click here.

GPS waypoints for birders