Mallorca

I have been living in Palma de Mallorca for the last 2 and a half weeks and I will continue to be living here until the end of May. Mallorca is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and thus has a Mediterranean climate.

I am living in a city of 400,000 people so the majority of the plants I have seen are cultivars planted around the city like palms, many tropical species, olive trees, and various shrubs.

I was able to go hiking about a half hour north-east of the city near a town called Valldemosa in a very rocky, semi-arid landscape. The landscape was mainly dominated by a species of 2 needle Pinus and a couple differentQuercus species. There was an abundance of lichens and mosses, and I also spotted a few ferns. Unfortunately October is not really the best time to look for flowers but there were some representatives from the Asteraceae and Scrophulariaceae (if it still existed).

Here are a few pictures of what I have been talking about:

The view of the sea from a point on my Valldemosa hike

A very cute moss I saw saw frequently with very long, silvery awns

These orange crustose-foliose epilithic lichens are everywhere in the city of Palma. Maybe a nitrogen loving species like Xanthoria?

And here is a fine specimen of Olea europaea, or olive, that was growing in Palma.

I saw plenty of cubical brown rot on my hike but no mushroom fruiting bodies to check out. Once it starts raining, hopefully that will change.

I also hope to go visit a few botany professors at the University of the Balearic Islands to borrow some books so I can start keying species out!