Controlled burn, silver tansy, and heat of May

An eruption? A wildfire? Nah...

After years living on Gran Canaria I have identified for myself the three main "hanami" events. I try to go and see all three of them each year, but sometimes it proves impossible.
One of them is the blooming of almonds. Another - the blooming of tajinaste azul, blue bugloss of Gran Canaria. And the third one is the blooming of silver tansy, much less obvious event. I guess my attachment to these rare plants is mostly due to the fact that I found and identified them myself, while both almonds and tajinaste are well known seasonal attractions.

Whoa, what's all this then?

Same as with almonds and tajinaste, it is a bit difficult to determine when the plants will be in flower, but from my observations the best time to visit is more or less in mid-May. The blooms are long-lasting, but they accumulate a lot of dust from the air, and what with calima visiting us more and more frequently, they lose their appeal, especially in macro mode.

This year, I went to check the plants a couple of times in April, they were slow to start this year.
And when I finally came at about the right time, I found all the king's horses and all the king's men blocking my way. That was not their intention, of course. When I got off the bus on Cruz de Tejeda stop, plumes of smoke were visible over the lip of Caldera de Tejeda, at the level of Los Moriscos cliffs. I knew that there were some wild fires this year already, very early in the year - a consequence of the lack of serious rain in winter. But everybody around me seemed relaxed, so it was apparent that the situation was under control. There were a couple of Cabildo workers seated at an outside table in a cafe. I asked them what was going on ("controlled burn") and if the path between Cruz de Tejeda and Artenara was passable ("I'd say yes"). As it turned out, they were wrong on the second count, but well, they tried.

I found some plants to photograph of course

I started going along the path to Artenara. The plants in their wild state grow along it on the level of Los Moriscos, precisely under the plumes of smoke, so I was somewhat skeptical about being able to get where I wanted. When I came to the viewpont Degollada de las Palomas I found the parking lot full of emergency vehicles - fire engines of a military support unit and a couple of ambulances. There were quite a few people from the said unit milling around. As far as I understood, the majority of them don't have a chance to do anything during the day - their task is to stay alert and at hand, if anything goes wrong (nothing did during this particular burn).

I had a chat with them. They didn't allow me to pass, of course. I tried to persuade them, but only for the sake of formality really. I am not even sure if I would have gone if they said "yeah, go right ahead".

Here they are. I think they were quite happy for a little distraction from all the waiting around

Controlled burns are conducted in Canary Islands quite often, to prevent much more destructive wild fires. From what the guys in the pics said they burn mostly dry grass and last year's bracken. They assured me that if there are something rare and endemic growing somewhere, they won't burn that. I bloody hope not.

I am not an expert, but the controlled burn strategy makes sense for me - they are basically burn off the easy burning material which can allow fire to travel fast and get out of control. I know that there are people who are dead against controlled burns though.

Handsome bunch, no?

Anyway. Not being able to go where I wanted, I just went down a few metres from the same viewpoint, accompanied by "eh, but where is she going? dunno, there are some plants she said, no? but, it's a bit dangerous, no? does she know what she's doing, you think?", etc. As I said, they had nothing to do there all day, and were understandably bored.

The explanation for my bizarre actions is simple - there are some plants of silver tansy right there, surrounded by chicken wire fence for protection, so I made a few snaps.

Mountain scabious, Pterocephalus dumetorus

After that, there were nothing to do but to come back to Cruz de Tejeda. There are a couple of plants in front of the Parador hotel. They mercifully escaped the wild fire of two years ago. The thing about silver tansy is that it starts blooming after a few years of growing, so I am very happy that these two specimens survived.

Also, this year they re-laid a small garden with local flora just behind the Parador. They have nice mountain scabious bushes there.

Aahhhh. Love them.

That's all, I am finished with floral stuff for this year, I believe. Although there are a few flowering things still around, the weather gets hotter and hotter, especially in the south and the central parts of the island, where the humidity from the ocean doesn't reach. So the island goes dry and brownish-yellow, for most part.

Ah, an important update - it's not only silver tansy that flowers in May, of course. There are plenty of other beautiful stuff around. FOr me one of the most notable ones is mountain scabious Pterocephalus dumetorum . A goodish stretch of Cruz de Tejeda - Artenara route has tall well-established plants growing on both side of the path, just before you come to the Cuevas de Caballero caves. When the plants are in bloom, you can't possibly miss the masses of pale lilac-pink flowers.

Mountain scabious Pterocephalus dumetorum

And here it grows together with wormwood Artemisia thuscula, locally called incienso, insence, for it's strong church-like scent.

Photos of silver tansy on shutterstock - here