Tuesday 20 October 2009

Cubres

What connects fictional troubled Mafia boss Tony Soprano with the island of Flores?

The answer is flowers - specifically seaside goldenrod (solidigo sempervirens). In the last scene of episode 6 of the second series, Tony is holding a bunch of flowers which includes seaside goldenrod.

Sorry for the poor quality of that picture but I don't know any cleverer way of doing it other than taking a photo of the TV. The seaside goldenrods are the small yellow ones - the uppermost in the bouquet above the yellow daisy and to the left of the upper red rose Tony's got his hooter in.

Known as cubres in Portuguese, seaside goldenrod is native to the Azores and is said to be the flower the abundance of which on Flores led early travellers here to christen the island "Flowers" - although how anyone knows that in the absence of a watercolour undeniably of a cubres in bloom endorsed in a late 15th century hand with "This is the plant the abundance of which led us to christen the island two day's sailing west of Faial Flores - (Signed) C. Columbus", I do not know.

Anyway, here's a clump of cubres at the carpark at the balneário (swimming area) in Fajã Grande this afternoon.

2 comments:

Kathie said...

In case you weren't already aware, there's a Fajã dos Cubres on São Jorge (near Calheta), which is one of the most spectacularly scenic vistas on that island:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faj%C3%A3_dos_Cubres

I know that you know what both cubres and a fajã are :-)

Neil King said...

Yes, we've been to FdC. Carol fell and skinned her knew there and hence of unfond memory!