One of the most interesting
reptiles found in Portugal is the Common Chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon).
It is green,
yellowish-green or brown and lives mainly in bushes in scrubland. It can be
found in the Algarve area in the south of Portugal and also lives in southern
Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus and Morocco.
In Portugal the
Common Chameleon is under threat due mainly to habitat loss from the continuing
building projects that serve the tourist trade. It is also caught for the pet trade but sadly
captive specimens often do not live long.
The Common Chameleon
feeds mainly on insects and spiders but is reported to also turn cannibal and
eat smaller individuals of its own species.
Common Chameleons
hibernate in the winter months when food is scarce. They dig themselves small
burrows in the ground.
Common chameleons are
usually solitary animals that establish territories but they come together for
mating. The females lay clutches of eggs that they bury in the ground. The eggs can take as much as a year to
incubate.
Just over a week back I was happy to watch a female swallowtail
butterfly (Papilio machaon) emerge
from a chrysalis that had formed from a caterpillar I had helped rear. It had
fed on rue (Ruta graveolens) that was growing in the front garden where I live
in Portugal.
I watched this magnificent insect wait until her
wings were dried and expanded successfully but it was late in the day and with
the early darkness the newly emerged swallowtail had to wait until the next
morning before I could release her into the sunlight.
I was surprised to see this butterfly emerge as late
in the year as early December, although it can still get warm in the day when
the sun is out and other species of butterfly are still flying.
The caterpillar of the swallowtail butterfly feeds
on various plants in the parsley family, as well as rue in continental
populations but in the UK the larvae will only take milk parsley.
Swallowtail caterpillar on rue. Photo by Steve Andrews
Fortunately for swallowtails in Portugal the rue is
often grown in gardens where it forms large clumps or small bushes.
Swallowtails are very rare Britain and only found in
the Norfolk Broads where they live in the fenlands where their foodplant grows. The swallowtail is one of the rarest and largest species of British butterfly.
In recent years the continental swallowtail has been
reported in the UK as well and it is thought to have crossed the channel as
migrants.
Tree Mallow in Santiago del Teide, Tenerife. Photo by Steve Andrews
The tree mallow is a very tall species of mallow,
hence its name, and is often found growing on cliffs and at the tops of
beaches. It has attractive pinkish-purple flowers and blooms in summer.
Known to botanists as Malva arborea or Lavatera
arborea the tree mallow is a biennial or short-lived perennial. It can grow to
as much as 3 metres in height and forms a very thick stem like a small trunk. It
is a handsome plant that stands out in its natural habitat.
The seeds are tiny nutlets and are edible and known
in Jersey as “petit pains” or little breads. The leaves and flowers can also be
eaten The leaves have a lot of mucilage and this is good for combating inflammation.
In herbal medicine the tree mallow´s leaves are
steeped in hot water and used to make a poultice for treating sprains. Like
other mallow species the tree mallow has a lot of mucilage in its leaves.
The tree mallow is listed in the book Food For Free
which is Richard Mabey´s classic guide for foragers. It is a wild flower to
look out for when on a coastal walk.
The tree mallow grows on coasts in the UK but is
also found in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as Libya, Algeria and the
Canary Islands. It is resistant to salty spray from the sea and is often found
on the coasts of islands.
The tree mallow makes an attractive garden plant and
will grow happily away from the sea. It will self-seed and is easy to maintain
year after year.
Dragon Tree growing at the Lisbon Botanical Gardens. Photo by Steve Andrews
Dragon trees come from Tenerife and the Canary
Islands, and it is said they are also found in Cape Verde, Madeira and parts of
Morocco, so I wasn't expecting to find them in Portugal or Gibraltar. However, they do grow in these places and grow very well there, as I was to discover.
Dragon trees can be seen in a botanical garden in the
centre of Lisbon in Portugal and also in parks and gardens in Gibraltar. The
dragon trees in these locations were just as healthy and well-formed as most of
their counterparts in Tenerife, though admittedly not as big as some of the
very old trees found in the Canary Islands.
Dragon Tree in Lisbon. Photo by Steve Andrews
The dragon tree (Dracaena
draco) is a weird plant, not really a tree, although it grows to tree-like
proportions. It has spiky leaves that grow in rosettes and bears small white
perfumed flowers that turn into orange-red berries as they ripen.
Dragon Tree berries. Photo by Steve Andrews
Dragon trees get their name because if cut they bleed
a red sap known as Dragon’s Blood, and also because aerial roots that hang
downward can resemble a dragon’s beard.
The dragon tree produces a mushroom-shaped head of
branches that fan outwards. The many branches in these dragon tree crowns are
said to be like the hundred heads of a dragon that the hero Hercules killed.
Drago Milenario. Photo by Steve Andrews
Dragon trees can grow for a very long time and the
Drago Milenario that grows in Icod de los Vinos in Tenerife is said to be
1,000-years-old, though estimates put it more like somewhere between 250 and
650 years in age.
Whatever its age, the Drago Milenario is a majestic specimen
and is the oldest dragon tree in the world. It has become a plant symbol of
Tenerife and many tourists flock to see it in the Parque del Drago it stands
in.
Dragon trees are very rare in the wild but are
extensively cultivated in subtropical gardens and parks. They take a very long
time to grow and only have a single trunk until the first time they flower when
the tree produces side shoots from its crown. It can take 10 years before a
dragon tree is big enough to flower and then branch.
Branching Dragon Tree. Photo by Steve Andrews
The dragon tree has been classed as a medicinal herb
because its sap is said to be good for strengthening the gums.
The Guanches, who were the people who lived in
Tenerife before the Spanish Conquest made shields out of the trunk and held the
dragon tree in great reverence.
Dragon tree berries have one or two seeds and can be
germinated easily enough though they may take as much as a month before
sprouting.
The fennel (Foeniculum
vulgare) is a common medicinal and culinary herb often found growing wild
by the sea. It is a tall plant with umbels of yellowish flowers and produces
finely divided feathery foliage that is very aromatic and smells like anise.
Fennel is native to the Mediterranean, parts of Europe
and the UK but is found in many other parts of the world, including America,
Canada and Australia. It is a perennial plant and likes to grow in grassy areas
and on waste-ground near the sea and is often to be found when foraging in
coastal areas. It is very common in the north of Tenerife in the Canary Islands
and can be found on the other islands.
Fennel is included and recommended in Richard
Mabey’s Food For Free, which is an excellent book on edible plants that can
be found while foraging and that has been republished over and over and is now
in its fortieth year after its first publication.
The aniseed aroma that fennel produces is a very good
way to identify this herb which is in the Apiaceae or parsley family, a group
of plants that also has several very poisonous species such as the hemlock.
Fennel, from Koehler's Medicinal-plants (1887) in Public Domain
Fennel seeds are good in curries and other spicy
dishes and can be used to make fennel tea. In Spanish the herb is known as
hinojo and teabags are commonly sold in grocery stores and supermarkets under
this name.
Fresh fennel leaves can be eaten in salad, used as a
garnish or made into sauces which are very good with oily fish. Fennel is
actually very good for indigestion so using it in your cooking makes a lot of
sense.
There is a variety of fennel known as Florence fennel
or finnochio that has a bulb at the base and this is popular as a vegetable to
be eaten raw or cooked.
In herbal medicine fennel is recommended for digestive
problems and is said to improve the vision. It is also said to be an aid to
slimming.
Fennel can be grown easily in the herb garden and will
produce large clumps. There is a bronze fennel too with attractively coloured
foliage.
Rock Samphire growing at Swanbridge, South Wales. Photo by Steve Andrews
The rock samphire, samphire or sea fennel is a
commonly found edible plant that grows in rocks at the top of beaches, growing
amongst the shingle and on cliffs. It is found in the UK and along coasts of
parts of Europe and the Mediterranean area, as well as on the Canary Islands.
Known to botanists as Crithmum maritimum, the rock
samphire is in the Apiaceae or parsley family. It has succulent divided leaves
and umbels of greenish-yellow flowers. It is aromatic if bruised and has quite a
strong smell and taste. The herbalist Nicholas
Culpeper described rock samphire as having a “pleasant, hot and spicy
taste.”
Richard Mabey gives some recipes for rock samphire in his classic book
for foragers entitled Food For
Free. This book has proved so popular that it has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year.
Rock Samphire in Portugal Photo by Steve Andrews
Rock samphire can be found all year round and can be
eaten sparingly raw in salads, pickled in vinegar or cooked as a green
vegetable. It was once so popular that it was mentioned by Shakespeare who describing
the dangerous practice of gathering it from high on cliffs, wrote, "Half-way down, Hangs one that
gathers samphire; dreadful trade!” It was collected too in the Isle of Wight and
shipped to London in vats of seawater to keep it fresh.
These days it is illegal to remove plants of samphire from their
natural habitat. Nevertheless the rock
samphire is an interesting edible plant to look out for when walking by the
sea.
Sea Beet amongst seaweed and rocks. Photo by Steve Andrews
Sea beet is a common edible plant found at the top of
beaches and near the sea in the UK and Europe.
Its leaves are very good cooked as greens and taste
very much like spinach. This is not surprising because the plant is an ancestor
of cultivated spinach beet and beetroot. In fact, the sea beet is also known as
wild spinach.
It produces masses of glossy dark green oval or
diamond-shaped leaves in rosettes that can be found all year around. Its flowers
are small and greenish and form in summer and autumn.
Sea beet can be found growing amongst pebbles and
rocks at the top of a beach and on coastal land and is easy to recognise. You
are not likely to find anything else looking like poking its greenery through
the pebbles. It can be found growing where seaweed and other floating rubbish
has been washed up by the tide.
The leaves of Sea Beet. Photo by Steve Andrews
The stems of sea beet and the leaf stalks sometimes
have a purplish-red colouration which shows their link with beetroots.
The leaves of sea beet can be eaten raw in salads as
well as being cooked like spinach. Many people think their flavour is actually
better than spinach we grow and buy.
Richard Mabey recommends it strongly in Food For Free his
classic book on foraging which is now in its fortieth year and contains info with illustrations for some 200 types of edible plant and wild mushroom.
The sea beet is known to botanists as Beta vulgaris ssp. maritma and used to be classed as in the Chenopodiaceae but it is
now in the Amaranthaceae. Many other plants in this family, such as the
goosefoot (Chenopodium album), are
also edible.
