Post by Wynette: I posted a few days ago about the ice plant which we’ve encountered a lot of along the coast here. It’s pretty but invasive and crowds out native plants. We didn’t see a lot of ice plant today and I’ve been looking at what is native here. There is quite a bit of gorse, which I associate with the moors from reading British fiction: “heather and gorse.” I just looked up and gorse is a native of Western Europe with a majority of species in Iberian peninsula. So, it does seem to be a native here. It’s in bloom now. Pretty yellow flowers. When you see gorse, you see it among lots of other plants and sometimes you see heather as well.
It seems most of the forests we see are filled with eucalyptus trees. Of course, those are not native. I just read that they were introduced here in the 1800s and now comprise 30% of all trees in Galicia. Charlie and I noticed some were being forested and wondered what they are used for. We eventually learned they are used to make paper. There is a ban on planting new “plantations” of them. You can plant in areas already containing eucalyptus but not in new areas. I’ve heard local people here call them a scourge. They are pretty and smell good, but I always feel relief to see a pine tree instead of a eucalyptus tree.
We have actually seen a few tamarisk trees here. Those are highly invasive in the United States Southwest. We try to eradicate them along the Grand Canyon, along the Rio Grande, etc. I don’t think they are invasive here. We’ve only seen some that look like they might have been planted on purpose in someone’s yard or a public park.
