People have been living on the island of Tresco, in the Scilly Islands, for over 5000 years, and visiting these islands by boats from the Cornish mainland as long ago as 6000/7000 BC. The islands would have looked very different back then, covered in oak, ash and elder trees, with roe deer and wild boar in the woodlands. The sea was much lower than it is today and the first settlers in the Neolithic grew oats and barley on the fertile lowlands of the ancient land they called Ennor (used by J. R. R. Tolkien’s for the fictional lands of Middle-earth).
Echium pininana, the tree echium, is in the borage family Boraginaceae. It is endemic to the Canary Islands, where it is restricted to the island of La Palma.
The Scilly Islands were still a single island when the Celts arrived around 500BC. The Romans also colonized Ennor, they called it Insulae Sillinae, which remained a single island until at least AD 400. Today, the Scilly Islands comprise some 55 islands and islets, of which Tresco is the second-biggest, measuring about 3.5 km (2.2 mi) by 1.75 km (1.09 mi). This was my second visit to the island, and on both occasions I was blessed with good weather, if a bit windy!
Benedictine monks first built an abbey on Tresco, founded in 964 AD, and appear to have introduced many new herbs and flowers, such as chamomile, wild thyme and tansy. The ruins of the original abbey can still be seen in the Abbey Gardens. Rents for the Scilly islands was reportedly paid to the crown in puffins! Which seems rather hard on these little birds, which still breed on the islands, albeit in small numbers (about 100 pairs). So there must have been many more puffins on these islands back in the Middle Ages! A reminder that wildlife was often much more abundant in the past (see shifting baselines).
Plants have been introduced into the gardens from all over the world, albeit obtained in many instances via Kew Gardens, including from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and the the Canary Islands. The mild climate of the Scilly Islands, bathed as they are by the Gulf Stream, provide a wonderful, virtually frost-free habitat for such exotics, sheltered by salt-tolerant Monterey Pine and Cypress trees from California.
The magnificent Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkop’ (Crassulaceae) – a succulent which is endemic to the western Canary Islands is a magnet for all sorts of insects, including bumblebees and butterflies (below). Although it is beautiful and fascinating in my opinion, this plant is considered to be invasive weed in some places, such as Australia.
I came across a remarkable flowering agave plant from South America (below). These succulent plants belong to the family Asparagaceae and like many agaves, Furcraea parmentieri is monocarpic, which means that the rosettes die after flowering. At maturity, this plant explodes into flower, producing a tall, spectacular inflorescence (below)
The gardens we see today, were the creation of a wealthy Victorian landowner called Augustus Smith, who in 1834 acquired the lease on the Isles of Scilly from the Duchy of Cornwall for £20,000; the equivalent of a few million pounds today. Still, quite a bargin I think. His title, Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly, gave him the power to make a number of changes and reforms reforms to the islands. He built his home on Tresco, and started the Tresco Abbey Gardens, introducing many exotic plants and carrying out landscape planting.
Gazania is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to Southern Africa, where they typically appear in the late spring and often in bloom throughout the summer into autumn.
The bumblebees liked the pincushion flowers (below), despite their being exotics from South Africa – they have pollen and nectar just like native flowers – and almost looked like they were trapped in a ‘bee cage’ made by the individual florets!
Proteas are one of my favourite flowers, and it was a treat to come across the magnificent King protea, Protea cynaroides (Proteaceae).
Banksia plants are also in the family Proteaceae and there are around 170 different species in Australia (below).
And another species of South African protea was in flower and being visited by a bumblebee (below), which obligingly moved about as I photographed it! Protea magnifica.
Ray Cannon's travel blog 