The Laurel forest

The laurel forest of Madeira, is currently the remnant of a primitive forest cover that withstood five centuries of humanization. According to contemporary records of the discovery of Madeira (1420), the whole island was covered with extensive and dense forest, which is why the Portuguese navigators assigned the name "Wood" on the island.

It is a forest with subtropical characteristics, humid, which dates back to the Tertiary which reached vast extensions of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. The last glaciation led to its demise in Europe, surviving only in the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.

The Madeiran laurel forest covers an area of 15,000 hectares (representing 20% of the island), on the slopes facing north, in a lush covering the steep slopes and deep valleys and cliffs of the remote interior, represents today the most extensive and best conserved laurel of the Atlantic islands.

The whole area of occurrence of Laurel integrates the Natural Park of Madeira, thereby giving it a strong protection status. In 1992 it was incorporated into the network of Biogenetic Reserves of the Council of Europe and is a Special Protection Zone-SPA under the Birds Directive.

The Madeira Laurel ascended to the quality of World Natural Heritage by UNESCO in December 1999.

The Laurel forest presents a uniform appearance, always green throughout the year, given that almost all trees and shrubs that make up, never lose the leaf's. Among the trees Til deserve special mention, the Vinhático, Loureiro and Barbusano, all of the family of Lauráceas.

The laurel forest gives shelter to numerous endemic primarily on shrub and herbaceous strata. It is also to highlight the great diversity and development communities of lichens and bryophytes, especially epiphytes present.

The moisture brought by the prevailing winds from the northeast, are retained and condensed by the laurel which thus provides abundant flow that depend on the irrigation of agricultural fields and water supplies to urban centers.