Thursday, August 18, 2011

Lanzarote Trees

I've been encouraged by Little Nell to take the plunge and contribute to Sepia Saturday, and since my home of Lanzarote is essentially an offshore bit of the Sahara, this week's theme about trees seemed like plunging in the deep end!  This first picture, of a Dragon Tree on Tenerife, a neighbouring island, qualifies as old, since I took it on honeymoon 36 years ago, and the tree itself is hundreds of years old.


Most of Lanzarote's trees are palms, but there are exceptions, such as this Papaya in a street in Haria.


And this Acacia, clinging to the cliff  over a footpath running a thousand feet above the sea at Famara.



Every Christmas huge "presents" are hung from this huge old fir in the plaza mayor - the town square - of Haria  where they dangle over the heads of the customers in the cafe below.






Sometimes the palms suffer in the strong trade winds, like this one, bowed but not defeated when it was partially uprooted, but which clawed its way back to the vertical - it's not really being supported by my walking group!

 
Sometimes, they are colonised by euphorbias, such as this parasitic growth



  And sometimes they give in, die, and fold over like this one, reminiscent of an elephant's trunk




The weather is not always perfect here, as this rather surreal image of palm trees in the mist (no gorillas though) shows:


One of our friends, on seeing this blog, sent me a photograph of a very old Acacia in his beautiful garden  overlooking Fuerteventura, across the Bocaina Straits



And finally, an artificial Christmas tree in the Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca. To me, this picture sums up, better than a thousand words, why we live here in Lanzarote!




















14 comments:

  1. Welcome, Caminante. I've spent holdays on Lanzarote but have no shots of its trees. The elephant's trunk and the leaning palm are the ones for me.

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  2. Trees seems like a perfect topic for you. You have a lot of trees I have never seen before and excellent photos of them.

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  3. Welcome to Sepia Saturday - I hope you will become a regular contributor. A great collection of tree images, but I am shocked to be told that the weather is not always perfect in Lanzarote - whenever I think of the lovely island I always have it beneath a perfect blue sky.

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  4. Wow, so many different kinds of trees, that inspires me to take pictures of trees everywhere I travel.

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  5. Welcome! What a nice variety of trees you have there. I really enjoyed your post, and hope that you have a wonderful Sepia Saturday.

    Kathy M.

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  6. All so lovely are the trees and especially so for any that bear fruit as well! Great post!

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  7. The almost horizontal palm tree is a wonderful picture! I don't know Lanzarote but your photos have given me a real flavour of the place.

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  8. I had no idea papaya trees looked like that. They sort of resemble palm trees.

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  9. So glad you joined in. We love new locales to explore and get to know about. Great post. The leaning palm was a very creative image. LOL
    QMM

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  10. Never knew of this place. All fascinating. Love that broken dead palm. Never seen one do that.

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  11. Yet another lovely place to visit. Nice photos.

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  12. I remember that Dragon Tree. The tour guide said it had an unusual bark , so we all started making silly barking noises...Oh dear!

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  13. What super trees. I became quite a fan of the dragon trees when I was in N. Tenerife.

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