Wild flora of the Canary Islands. Flowers of the Canary Islands.

Wild flora

Periploca laevigata

    The Canary Islands boast an extraordinary wealth of flora, making them one of the world’s leading biogeographical regions and the foremost in Spain, both for their high number of species and for their origin, variety, ecological range and evolutionary process, which is still in full swing. The vascular flora of the Canary Islands comprises around 2,400–2,500 species, of which around 700 are endemic, some 100 are shared with other Macaronesian archipelagos, such as the Azores or Madeira, and around 600 are of Mediterranean-African origin, with the remainder being introduced species.
    Within the wide variety of species that make up the Canary Islands’ vegetation, a distinction must be made between native species, endemic species and species that have been introduced by humans, those brought by the first settlers and, above all, those that arrived following the conquest of the Canary Islands by the Spanish, French and Portuguese. The endemic flora consists of species that grow only in our archipelago and which, through various evolutionary processes, have adapted to specific areas of the Canary Islands.
    The indigenous or native flora consists of species that are native to the Canary Islands, though not necessarily exclusive to the archipelago, as a large proportion of it is also found in other Atlantic archipelagos: Madeira, the Azores, the Salvajes islets and, to a lesser extent, the Cape Verde Islands, within a floristic region known as Macaronesia. Introduced flora consists of those species that have been brought to our territory by the first settlers who arrived here, whether intentionally or by chance.
    The current distribution of this significant flora across the different islands of the archipelago is highly varied, and is determined more by the geological age, topography and climatic characteristics of each island than by its size. Generally speaking, it is estimated that the island of Tenerife has around 1,470 wild species, Gran Canaria 1,300, La Palma 900, La Gomera 900, Fuerteventura 750, Lanzarote 700 and El Hierro 700. In terms of the number of endemic species, the island of Tenerife also ranks first with around 300, followed by Gran Canaria with 215, La Palma and La Gomera with around 200 each, El Hierro with around 120, Fuerteventura with 78 and Lanzarote with 70.