The Canary Island Pine is an evergreen tree with long needle type leaves and fairly large cones. This tree species is native to the Canary Islands (part of Spain but located off the west coast of Africa) but has been widely planted in Andalucia. The images in this post were taken at several parks in the city of Malaga on the Spanish sun coast.
The oblong shaped cones measure about 7-8 inches long and 2-3 inches wide before they open. The needles are quite long measuring about 10 inches in length.
The visual effect of the new pollen cones and the long needles hanging down is quite interesting. They look like little heads poking out of round puffy collars. Shaking the branch when these pollen cones reach full maturity can result in quite a shower of yellow, powdery pollen!
One curious thing about this tree species when the trees get older is the "hairy" trunks covered with short, leafy clumps of needles. In downtown Malaga at the "paseo el parque" there is a group of about 7-8 of these trees that all present this hairy trunk effect. The image below is of one of these.
Other Mediterranean pines include Pinus pinea, Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster.Another Evergreen tree native to Spain is the Abies Pinsapo
1 comments:
Hi Dan, I have a photo of a tree. I think it's a pine, but I'm not sure, maybe it's a fir. Would you be willing to look at my photo and let me know what you think it might be? Many thanks for your consideration.
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