Porto Santo (vegetation)

The passages that follow on the vegetation of Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) are the work of the distinguished botanist Carlos de Meneses, co-author of this work. They are taken from a fine study published in the Funchal Diario Popular of 1 and 2 April 1908, and are reproduced here because they are judged to be of particular interest to the inhabitants of that island.

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Phylloxera, which first appeared in Madeira in 1872, showed itself on Porto Santo only much later; yet although its introduction there is recent, the damage it has caused is already considerable. The vines most heavily attacked have been those on clay soils, but in some places, though few, where the soil is sandy, the vineyards have also been invaded by this insect. We are told that almost all the vines of the coastal strip have disappeared, and that today only two cultivated belts of vineyard remain there, one at Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit) and the other at Ponta (‘point’).

Since the low-lying land of Porto Santo is almost entirely calcareous, it might perhaps be advisable to try Vitis monticola there, and more particularly V. Berlandieri, American species that could be grafted with the grape varieties now cultivated. Unless serious attention is given to introducing resistant vines suited to the soils, the viticulture of Porto Santo may yet suffer great devastation, for experience has shown that sand does not always form a dyke against the invasion of the terrible phylloxera.

Fig trees and mulberries are the only fruit trees that are plentiful on Porto Santo. The almond, the peach, the pomegranate, the prickly pear (tabaibeira), the olive, the pear and the pereiro are also cultivated there, but all of them are more or less rare. The pears known as caniças, the only ones we saw on that island, are excellent, and the olives from the trees in the town, though inferior to those of Portugal, can be used for eating.

It is reasonable to believe that the olive trees growing in the gardens of the town of Porto Santo were brought from the mainland, since both the shape of their leaves and the size of their fruit differ from the varieties madeirensis and buxifolia of Olea europea, which grow wild in the archipelago. The latter variety occurs on the cliffs (rochas) of Pico de Ana Ferreira (‘Ana Ferreira’s peak’) on that island, where it is no more than a simple shrub.

The junipers (Juniperus phoenicea) and dragon trees (Dracoena Draco) that covered Porto Santo at the time of its discovery are now completely extinct. The only native shrubby species worth mentioning that are still found there are the boxthorn (espinheiro, Lycium Europoeum), the marmulano (Sideroxylon marmulano, a shrub) (Sideroxylon Marmulano), the cliff box (buxo da rocha, Catha Dryandri), the heath (urze, Erica scuparia) and the olive referred to above.

Apart from the fruit trees already mentioned, the only other woody species foreign to the island are the following: the tamarisk (Tamarix Gallica), introduced in 1834 by João António Pedroso and now fairly common; the white poplar (Populus alba), which is also frequent; the pine (Pinus Pinaster), grown on a very small scale at Enguias (‘eels’) and at Curral do Canário; the oleaster (Eloeagnus angustifolia); the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera); Myoporum acuminatum; and Nicotiana glauca. These last two species, which are becoming increasingly frequent, were introduced by the late botanist João Maria Moniz.

Two specimens of the Aleppo or Jerusalem pine that we saw growing on Porto Santo were felled some years ago. This species ought to adapt well to the limestone soils in the north of the island, which cannot be used for agriculture.

Counting native and naturalised plants together with those cultivated on a large scale, Porto Santo has 325 species, 317 of them phanerogams and 8 vascular cryptogams. The families most widely represented on the island are the Leguminosae with 40 species, the Compositae and the Gramineae with 38 each, the Cruciferae with 15, the Umbelliferae and Caryophyllaceae with 13, and the Labiatae and Chenopodiaceae with 11. Only two species appear to be peculiar to the island: Cheiranthus arbuscula and Pedrosia porto-sanctana.

Of the many fodder species found on Porto Santo, we shall mention only the following, because they are abundant: the serralha (Lonchus oleracens), the leituga (Crepis divaricata), various clovers, two Melilotus, the azeda (Scorpiurus sulcata), the balanco (Avena fatua and A. barbata), Briza maxima, B. minor and the azevem (Lolium perenne). Two species of Mesembrianthemum (M. crystallinum and M. nodiflorum) yield soda, and a textile fibre used in making ropes is extracted from Lavatera arborea. The white poppy, which yields opium, is very common among the cornfields’.