14 Salter, Flora of Teneriffe. 



stretches of pinar above Icod and La Guancha, elsewhere but scant 

 remains. Thus in crossing from Orotava to Guimar one reaches the 

 divide at Pedro Gil without having passed half-a-dozen pines. 

 Upon the southern side of the island matters are rather better. 

 Above Arafo and Gui'mar there are some good patches of forest, and 

 farther to the south-west, above Granadilla and Vilaflor, pines of the 

 finest growth, cresting rocky ridges and fringing deep ravines, give 

 to the scenery almost an alpine character. Yet even here there are 

 vast stretches of sun-scorched waste which were forest -clad only a 

 century ago. The pines above Vilaflor are rooted in arid red trachyte, 

 apparently without admixture of loam. 



Just as in the lower part of the pinar there is a large admixture 

 of heath and cistus, so towards its upper limit, as the pines thin out, 

 we reach a zone where two leguminous shrubs, the chief fodder- 

 plants of the island, predominate over all other forms of vegetation. 

 They are Cytisus prolifer, the escobon, silvery-leaved and white- 

 flowered, and Adenocarpus viscosus, the codeso, with flowers of the 

 same golden-yellow as the gorse. Above the Gui'mar pinar there are 

 many hundreds of acres occupied by these two plants, the escobon 

 being often a small tree. Above Arafo the writer met with extensive 

 and impenetrable thickets of codtso ten feet in height. It is probable 

 that the destruction of the forests has led to a large extension of the 

 area thus occupied. The shrubby species of Hypericum are still 

 much at home at this level, as are also the various specis of Sideritis 

 (S. canariensis, candicans, etc.), whose leaves and stems are covered 

 with a white woolly down, and the members of the more anomalous 

 labiate genus Bystropogon (B. plumosus, canariensis. odoratissimus) . 

 The latter are aromatic shrubs with masses of small, inconspicuous 

 flowers. Both genera are highly characteristic of the endemic flora. 

 The " sempervivums " of the genus Greenovia flourish at this eleva- 

 tion. Luxuriant masses of the largest species, G. aurea, cover the 

 moist rocks upon the Orotava side a short distance below the Pass 

 ■of Pedro Gil. It was upon the flanks of the Peak in this sub-zone, 

 amongst Cytisus, Bystropogon and scattered pines, that the latest 

 volcanic outbreak in the island, that of November, 1909, occurred. 

 The following plants, not previously alluded to, are also character- 

 istic of the zone of the monte verde and pinar or are restricted to 

 it : — Cheiranthus mutabilis, Sisymbrium millefolium ; Geranium 

 anemonefolium ; Vicia cirrhosa ; Polycarpcea latifolia ; Pimpinella 

 dendroselinum ; Todaroa aurea and montana ; Rubia peregrina ; 

 Argyranthemum fceniculaceum, Pyrethrum ptarmiccefolium, Senecio 

 multiflorus and appendiculatus, Carlina salicifolia, Centaurea Webbiana 

 and canariensis ; Convolvulus fruticulosus and variabilis ; Echium 

 virescens and lineolatum ; Cedronella canariensis ; Daphne gnidium ; 

 Urtica morifolia ; Smilax canariensis ; Agrostis canariensis. 



C. — Above the Clouds 



This uppermost region commences at about 2000 m. (6500 ft.), 

 where the ridgy back of the cumbre stands clear above the cloud- 



