Tenerife

[Rense Haveman]

Had a week holiday at Tenerife, the largest Island of the volcanic Canary Islands Archipelago. An island with the most amazing flora I've ever experienced. Thirty percent of the species is restricted to the island of the Macronesian region, it's full of so-called endemics!!! Paradise, Edens Garden for a botanist. It's called the botany Galapagos, so you can imagine!

Here just two completely different systems, a succulent scrub community at the dry coast, with cactus-like Euphorbias (Spurges), and a sub-alpine dwarfscrub community restricted to the Teide, the highest mountain peak of Spain, with spectacular Teide viper-buglosses.


Kleinio neriifoliae-Euphorbion canariensis by Rense Haveman, on Flickr




Echium wildpretii by Rense Haveman, on Flickr

 

[John Allen]

Great shots... Timely too, since I'm reading a series of books set in the early 1800's that has a main protagonist who is a naturalist. The books talk about the Canary Islands and other fascinating places. Just think how amazing it must have been to be one of the first outsiders to see so many strange and wonderful things.

 

[Rense Haveman]

Great shots... Timely too, since I'm reading a series of books set in the early 1800's that has a main protagonist who is a naturalist. The books talk about the Canary Islands and other fascinating places. Just think how amazing it must have been to be one of the first outsiders to see so many strange and wonderful things.

Yes, that must have been great. Teneriffe was visited by Alexander von Humboldt in that time. The founder of biogeography, I remember from my first colleges in university....

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Amazing, almost alien landscapes. I'd like to go there someday.

 

[Pete Askew]

And superb shots of the landscape and flora too, Rense. I do like those two small clouds.

 

[Rense Haveman]

Rob, Pete, thank you!

 

[Ivar Dahl-Larsen]

I am not a botanist, I really do not know what I am any longer, but one thing I know, yes just one thing. I love beauty when I see it, and this is wonderful. They say Rense that Madeira is great as well. My wife and I booked a trip to Madeira once or so I thought as Funchal was the place to arrive at. Waiting for the plane in Oslo we all of a sudden realised we were going to Funchal yes, but in the Azores. We took it with a huge smile and had a great time. Also a wonderful place for lovers of beauty and a botanist like yourself. Islands of Volcanos too. A deviation I know

 

[Julian de'Courcy]

Liking this series a lot Rense. I appreciate the plants a lot. I'd possibly though be on my knees filling bags with the rock materials and see how they behave in a glaze or clay body. Probably not allowed though and quite rightly so.

 

[Rense Haveman]

Thank you, Ivar, Julian!