Bugio

It is one of the three Desertas and one of the five islands that make up the Madeira archipelago. Its name derives, as stated in the Dic. Univ. Port. II., from the fact that it resembles the monkey to which this name is given; it is five miles long or just over nine kilometers by half a mile or 926 meters at its widest; it ends to the south at Ponta da Agulha, which is one of the extreme points of the archipelago; it is of high and almost inaccessible rocks but with good pastures. The highest peak of Bugio is 411 meters above sea level.

Bugio is uncultivated, has no water or any house, and produces poppies, trevina, marroios, and other herbs, some of which are forage plants. At the top of the island and near the southern end, there are some fossil shells, and on the sea rocks, the very rare Chrysanthemum haematomma is found, a peculiar composite, remarkable for its beautiful capitula with the flowers of the purple-black disc and the white or pink marginal flowers.

As seen from the records of the Conservatory of the District of Funchal, Bugio belonged on the 3rd of October 1867 to João de Vasconcelos de Sousa Câmara Caminha Faro e Veiga, Marquis of Castelo Melhor, having been auctioned off after his death, by Alexandre Fernandes Camacho Júnior. Today it belongs to Carlos Cossart and Henrique Hinton, who acquired it, along with the other two Desertas, on the 24th of November 1894, when the assets of the said Alexandre Camacho were auctioned off.

Bugio belongs to the parish of Sé and has a small natural harbor to the west, called Alagoa.