Madeira flora

I visited Madeira for the first time and was really impressed by the amount of flowers and attractive trees all over the island. It was early June and several were past their best, but still provided a really pleasing display.

Madeira is an island off the west coast of Africa, west of Morocco. It is an Autonomous Region of Portugal. The island was formed by underwater volcanoes. Today the whole island is hilly and mountainous, there is hardly a patch of flat land! There are steep mountains cut by many valleys.

The island has enough natural waterfall. The north coast is particularly lush, as moisture laden clouds arrive from the Atlantic and as they rise above the mountains, they dump the moisture. There are lots of springs and waterfalls. There is lots of agriculture. In the past the levadas or water channels were built to carry water from the northwest and west to the drier southern side.

The majority of the flora on Madeira today is not endemic.

One plant that covers the whole island is Agapanthus, aka the Lily of the Nile, African Blue Lily, and African Lily. Agapanthus flowers bloom in large, round clusters or umbels of blue, white or violet-blue, 6-8" across and on a thick 2-4' tall stem. Note the bee in the 2nd photo -

On the Azores, it is the Hydrangea that dominates the islands. They were only in small quantities on Madeira, but some were very large. They were white or pale blue in colour.

Along the roadside on the northwest of the island -

In Funchal I particularly loved the African Tulip tree, aka Flame-of-the-forest.

More common are the tall Tipuana tipu trees, Pride of Bolivia, with their small yellow flowers. They drop their flowers like the Jacarandas.

Unfortunately the Jacaranda trees had already blossomed. However there were still a few young trees in some areas with the striking purple colour. They are originally from the Central and Southern Americas.

The main indigenous tree formed the Laurisilva or Laurel Forest, but most were cut down in the early days for buildings and boats etc. The surviving forests are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I didn't get any photos as we drove past . An endemic flower however is the Pride of Madeira -

These Angel's Trumpets, Brugmansia , originate from the South America area -

Oleanders or nerium are found all over the island. It is not known where they are originally from.

Bougainvillea are also quite widespread, originally coming from S America

There were lots of Hibiscus everywhere.

I don't know what the following 3 are -

Prickly pear flowers -

In the farmer's market I saw these fruit. I'd not seen the long green ones before, they are Delicious Fruit aka Adam's Rib, Monstera deliciosa, originating from S. America -