The Canary Islands

by Florence Du Cane

Much of the labour on the plantations is done by women, and long processions of them make their way to the packing-houses, bearing the immense bunches of green fruit on their heads. Bare-footed, sturdy, handsome girls many of them, with curiously deep voices in which they chant with a sing-song note as they trip along with a splendid upright carriage. Unfortunately their song is instantly broken when they catch sight of a foreigner, and a chorus of Peni, peni, peni, either getting louder and louder if no attention is paid to the demand, or turned to a bleating whine for una perrita (a little penny), accompanied frequently by a volley of stones. Foreigners complain bitterly of this begging, but they have brought it on themselves by throwing coins to children as they drive along the road. Or when a crowd of urchins collects, as if to reward them for their bright black eyes and pretty faces, which many of them have, a shower of coppers is thrown to them, so it is small wonder that a race has grown up whose earliest instinct teaches it to beg, and I feel sure that Peni is often the first word that a toddling child is taught.

The packing-houses are also a blot on the landscape, sometimes great unsightly sheds tacked on to what has once been the summer residence of an old Spanish family, and here crowds of men, women and girls are wrapping up the bunches, which are shipped in wooden crates by the thousand, and tens or even hundreds of thousands, I should imagine, judging by the endless procession of carts drawn by immense bullocks which wend their way down to the mole, when a steamer comes in to take a whole cargo of the fruit to England. I used often to wonder that it was possible to find such an unlimited market for bananas when one thinks that Grand Canary ships as many as Teneriffe, and they have a formidable rival also in Jamaica. It is to be hoped that the trade will not be overdone and the markets fall, or that a blight will not come on the plants, and that the Islands will not again suffer from the ruin which followed the cochineal boom. Bananas are said to have been introduced to the Canaries from the Gulf of Guinea, but that was not their real home, and no one knows how they were originally brought from the Far East. From the Canaries they were sent to the West Indian Islands in 1516, and on from there to Central America. Oviedo, writing about the natural history of the West Indies, mentions having seen bananas growing in the orchard of a monastery at Las Palmas in 1520. The botanical name of the Banana, Musa sapientum, was given in the old belief that it was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The variety now under cultivation is Musa Cavendishii, the least tropical and most suitable for cool climates. Locally they are called Plátano, a corruption of the original name Plántano, from plantain in English, under which name they are always known in the East. Though the plant has been known in the islands for nearly four centuries, it was of no use as a crop before the water which is so absolutely necessary for its cultivation was brought down from the mountains. Some residents—those, I noticed, who did not own banana plantations—lament that the excessive irrigation has made the climate of Orotava damper than it used to be, but if the cultivation has brought about a climatic change, it has also brought about a financial change in the fortunes of the farmers and landlords, and many an enterprising man, who a few years ago was just a working medianero, satisfied with his potato or tomato crop, has little by little built up a very substantial fortune.

A medianero is a tenant or bailiff who cultivates the ground and receives a share of the profits. The contract between the landlord and the medianero varies a good deal on different estates, and the system is rather complicated, but as a rule he provides his tenant with a house rent free, pays for half the seed of a cereal, potato or vegetable crop, but none of the labour for cultivation, and the profits made on the crop are equally divided. Sometimes, especially in the case of banana cultivation, the proprietor pays for half the labour of planting and gathering the crop for sending to market, but never for any of the intermediate labour. The landlord provides the all-important water-supply, but all the labour of irrigation has to be done by the medianero, who also pays a share of taxes. The loss of a crop through blight or a storm is equally shared. The trouble of the system, which in some ways seems a good one, must come in over the division of the profits, as either the honesty of the tenant must be implicitly trusted or an overseer must be present when the crop is gathered to see that the landlord gets his true medias.

At a higher altitude, some 800 or 900 ft. below the village of Santa Ursula, which is justly famous for its groups of Canary Palms, is a large estate, as yet uncultivated from lack of sufficient water. Besides the natural vegetation which stands the summer drought, the owner has collected together many drought-resisting plants, among which are several natives of Australia. The Golden Wattle seemed quite at home, though the trees have not yet attained the size they would in their native country, and small groves of Eucalyptus Lehmanni, with their curious fluffy balls of flower, gave welcome shade, and Australian salt bushes were being grown as an experiment with a view to providing a new fodder plant. The stony ground was covered with a low-growing Cystus monspeliensis closely resembling the variety much prized in England as florentina, its white blossoms covering the bushes. Many of the plants were the same as on the lower cliffs, but Convolvulus scoparius I was much interested to find growing in its natural state. The growth so closely resembles that of the retama that it might easily be mistaken for it; the natives call it Leña Noel or Palo de rosa, but the flower is like a miniature convolvulus growing all down the stems. Both this and Convolvulus floridus are known as Canary Rosewoods, and scoparius has become rare owing to the digging of its roots from which the oil was distilled. Dr. Morris of Kew was a great admirer of C. floridus, and describes guadil, as it is known locally, as “a most attractive plant. When in flower it appears as if covered with newly fallen snow. It is one of the few native plants which awaken the enthusiasm of the local residents.” Many Sempervivums were to be seen, but S. Lindleyi is most curious. Its fleshy transparent leaves grow in clusters and it has received the local and very apt name of Guanche grapes. Little Scylla iridifolium grew everywhere, and one could have spent days collecting treasures, and I felt torn in two between admiring the splendid views which the headland commands, and trying to add something to my most insufficient knowledge of the native plants. Near the house in cultivated ground were to be seen the two most ornamental native brooms, Genista rhodorrhizoides and Cytisus filipes; both are of drooping habit, with very sweet-scented white flowers, and should be more widely cultivated. The former very closely resembles the variety mono-sperma, which grows near the Mediterranean coast.

STATICES AND PRIDE OF TENERIFFE

Here too were to be seen some splendid clumps of the true native Statice arborea which for many years gave rise to such botanical discussions. For a long time this variety was lost and a hybrid of arborea and macrophylla did duty for the true variety, which was definitely pronounced extinct. It was, I believe, Francis Messon who first collected this plant in Teneriffe on his way to the Cape in 1773, and describes its locality as “on a rock in the sea opposite the fountain which waters Port Orotava.” These rocks were the Burgado Cove to the east of Rambla del Castro, and it was again found growing in this neighbourhood in 1829 by Berthelot and Webb, who describe it in their admirable book on the “Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries.” Before this date another French botanist, Broussonet, had “discovered” the plant a few miles further along the coast, at Dauté near Garachico, and after its complete disappearance from the Burgado rocks, owing probably to goats having destroyed it, it was re-discovered in the Dauté locality a few years ago, through the untiring efforts and perseverance of Dr. George Perez. Having heard of the plants growing on inaccessible rocks, he got a shepherd to secure the specimens for him, the plants being hauled up by means of ropes to which hooks were attached, and it was no doubt thanks to their position that even goats were not able to destroy them. So Statice arborea was rescued and is once more in cultivation, and one of the most ornamental and effective garden plants it is possible to see. The loose panicles of deep purple flower-heads last for weeks in perfection, and are so freely produced that even one plant of it seems to give colour to a whole garden. The statices endemic to the various islands form quite a long list and are all ornamental, and prove the fact I have already mentioned of the extremely restricted area in which many native plants are found. The true Statice macrophylla finds a home in only a small area on the north-east coast of Teneriffe and is another very showy species. Statice frutescens is very similar to Statice arborea, but is of much smaller stature; its native home appears to be—or to have been—on the rocky promontory of El Freyle, to the extreme west of Teneriffe.

From a single high rock, known as Tabucho, near Marca, also on the west coast, came in 1907 a new variety, at first thought to be Preauxii, but it was eventually found to be an entirely new contribution and was named Statice Perezii after Dr. Perez who discovered the plant and sent the specimen to Kew.

The island of Gomera contributes the very blue-flowered S. brassicifolia, its winged stems making it easy to recognise, and from Lanzarote comes S. puberula, a more dwarf kind, very varying in colour. These appear to comprise the statices best known now in cultivation, though there are several other less interesting varieties.

Here, at Santa Ursula, great interest is also taken in the Echiums, another race of Canary plants. Echium simplex must be accorded first place, as it is commonly called Pride of Teneriffe; it bears one immense spike of white flowers, and like the aloe, after this one supreme effort the plant dies. The seed luckily germinates freely. From the island of La Palma had come seed of Echium pininana, and tales of a deep blue flower-spike said to rise from 9 ft. to 15 ft. in the air, and though the plants were only one year old some showed promise of flowering. The pinkish flowered E. auberianum, like so many of the statices, has made its home in almost inaccessible places among the rocks on the Fortaleza at a height of some 7000 ft., close to the Cañadas.