Читать книгу The Sierras of Extremadura. 32 half and full-day walks in western Spain's hills онлайн

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Griffon vultures can be seen from many of the walks in this book

Flowers and plants

Extremadura’s natural habitats support an enormous diversity of flowers, flowering bushes, trees and vegetation. In spring it is impossible to do many of the walks in this book without stepping on carpets of colour created by thousands of wildflowers: Barbary nut, Spanish iris, field gladiolus, foxglove, asphodel, birdsfoot trefoil, snake’s-head fritillary, lupin, yellow and white daisy, vetch and orchid. The distinctive purple that covers the dehesa in April and May is courtesy of viper’s bugloss.

Clockwise from left: Cystus Albidus; aricia Agestis on a Leontodon Hispidus; lichen on granite boulder; sawfly orchid (Ophrys Tenthredinifera)

Poor soil and stony sierra slopes are no barrier to tough but beautiful bushes: white and pink flowering cistus, white and yellow broom, retama, lavender, Mediterranean Daphne, Spanish heath, rosemary, juniper and tansy. They form a backdrop to the walks in spring and early summer.