Finca Cortesin is built on an eco-friendly philosophy. Every aspect of the property, from the golf course landscaping to the direction hotel rooms face have been carefully planned to take advantage of the lush green environment that surrounds it. Over 20 different kinds of flora have been imported and are part of the surrounding ecology. From the Pacific, South America, Africa, China, Japan, the Middle East, and of course the Mediterranean. More than a golf course, it is an environmental sanctuary.
Metrosideros polymorpha-Lehua
FAM. MYRTACEAE
Metrosideros is a genus of approximately 50 trees, shrubs, and vines native to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, from the Philippines to New Zealand and including the Bonin Islands, Polynesia, and Melanesia, with an anomalous outlier in South Africa. Most of the tree forms are small, but some are exceptionally large, the New Zealand species in particular. The name derives from the Greek metra or "heartwood" and sideron or "iron".
Metrosideros are often cultivated for their showy flowers, as street trees or in home gardens. The flowers are generally red, but some cultivars have orange, yellow or white flowers.
Eucalyptus - Eucalyptus calmadulensis
FAM. MYRTACEAE
Eucalyptus (From Greek, ευκάλυπτος = "Well covered") is a diverse genus of trees (and a few shrubs), the members of which dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than seven hundred species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia, with a very small number found in adjacent parts of New Guinea and Indonesia and one as far north as the Philippines islands. Many Eucalyptus have been planted in the dry regions of Southern California and in Africa.
Members of the genus can be found in almost every region of the Australian continent, because they have adapted to all of its climatic conditions; in fact no other continent is so characterised by a single genus of tree as Australia is by its eucalyptus. Many, but far from all, are known as gum trees in reference to the habit of many species to exude copious sap from any break in the bark (e.g. Scribbly Gum).
Chinese Willow - Salix matsudana
FAM. SALICACEAE
Salix matsudana (Chinese Willow) is a species of willow native to northwestern China. The species is named in honour of Sadahisa Matsudo, a Japanese botanist.
It is a medium-sized to large deciduous tree, growing up to 20-25 m tall. It is upright and grows rapidly, but has a short lifespan. The leaves are narrow, light green, around 4-10 cm long and 1-2 cm broad. The flowers are catkins produced early in the spring; it is dioecious, with the male and female catkins on separate trees.
Many botanists, notably the Russian willow expert Alexei Konstantinovich Skvortsov, treat Salix matsudana as a synonym of the Peking Willow Salix babylonica, which, despite its botanical name, is also native to northern China. The only reported difference between the two is that S. matsudana has two nectaries in each female flower, whereas S. babylonica has only one.
Schinos Molle
FAM. ANACARDIACEAE
Brazilian peppertree is a shrubby tree with narrow, spiky leaves. It grows 4 to 10 m tall, with a trunk 25 to 35 cm in diameter. It produces an abundance of small flowers formed in panicles that bear a great many small, flesh-coloured, berry-like fruits in December and January. It is indigenous to South and Central America and can also be found in semitropical and tropical regions of the United States and Africa. All parts of the tree have high oil and essential oil contents that produce a spicy, aromatic scent.
Kermes Oak - Quercus coccifera
FAM. FAGACEAE
The Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera) is an oak in the turkey oak section Quercus sect. Cerris. It is native to the western Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal east to Greece.
It is a large shrub, rarely a small tree, reaching 1-6 m tall (rarely to 10 m) and 50 cm trunk diameter. It is evergreen, with spiny-serrated leaves 1.5-4 cm long and 1-3 cm broad. The acorns are 2-3 cm long and 1.5-2 cm diameter when mature about 18 months after pollination, held in a cup covered in dense, elongated, reflexed scales.
The Kermes Oak is closely related to the Palestine Oak (Q. calliprinos) of the eastern Mediterranean, with some botanists including the latter in Kermes Oak as a subspecies or variety. The Palestine Oak is distinguished from it by its larger size (more often a tree, up to 18 m) and larger acorns over 2 cm diameter.
Rosebay - Nerium oleander
FAM. APOCYNACEAE
Oleander (Nerium oleander), is a evergreen shrub or small tree in the dogbane family Apocynaceae. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium. Other names include Adelfa, Alheli Extranjero, Baladre, Espirradeira, Flor de São Jose, Laurel de jardín, Laurel rosa, Laurier rose, Flourier rose, Olean, Aiwa, Rosa Francesca, Rosa Laurel, and Rose-bay (Inchem 2005), Araliya (in Sinhalese); in Chinese it is known as (jia zhu tao). The ancient city of Volubilis in North Africa took its name from the old Latin name for the flower.
It is native to a broad area from Morocco and Portugal eastward through the Mediterranean region and southern Asia to Yunnan in southern parts of China (Flora Europaea; Flora of China; Huxley et al. 1992; www.inchem.org). It typically occurs around dry stream beds. It grows to 2-6 m tall, with spreading to erect branches. The leaves are in pairs or whorls of three, thick and leathery, dark green, narrow lanceolate, 5-21 cm long and 1-3.5 cm broad, and with an entire margin. The flowers grow in clusters at the end of each branch; they are white, pink or yellow.
Bella Sombra - Phytolacca dioica
FAM. PHYTOLACCACEAE
The Phytolacca dioica (ombú or bella sombra) is a massive evergreen herb native to the Pampas of South America. It is the only tree that grows there, the only one able to survive on the little water available. The tree has an umbrella-like canopy that spreads to a girth of 12 to 15 meters (40 to 50 feet) and can attain a height of 12 to 18 meters (40 to 60 feet). The ombú grows fast but being herbaceous its wood is soft and spongy enough to be cut with a knife. Because of this, it is also used in the art of bonsai, as it is easily manipulated to create the desired effect. Since the sap is poisonous, the ombú is not grazed by cattle and is immune to locusts and other pests. For similar reasons, the leaves are sometimes used as a laxative or purgant. It is a symbol of Uruguay, Argentina, and of Gaucho culture, as its canopy is quite distinguishable from afar and provides comfort and shelter from sun and rain.
The tree is categorized in the same genus as the North American pokeweed. The species is also cultivated in Southern California as a shade tree.
Oak - Quercus ilex subs. ilex
FAM. FAGACEAE
The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus (from Latin "oak tree"), which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Cyclobalanopsis and Lithocarpus. The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cold latitudes to tropical Asia and the Americas.
Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with a lobed margin in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with a smooth margin. The flowers are catkins, produced in spring. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a cup-like structure known as a cupule; each acorn contains one seed (rarely two or three) and takes 6-18 months to mature, depending on species. The "live oaks" (oaks with evergreen leaves) are not a distinct group, instead with their members scattered among the sections below.
Sugarplum tree
FAM. MALVACEA
Plant of the mallow family (Malvaceae), native to Australia and grown in warm temperate regions as an ornamental. Because of its shapely growth and regularly spaced branches, it is sometimes grown along avenues.
The tree grows to about 15 m (50 feet) in height and has alternate oval or oblong leaves. The pale pink flowers are about 6 cm (2.5 inches) across.
Aleppo Pine - Pinus halepensis.
Familia Pinaceae
The Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) is a pine native to the Mediterranean region. The range extends from Morocco and Spain north to southern France, Italy and Croatia, and east to Greece and northern Libya, with an outlying population (from which it was first described) in Syria (including Aleppo), Jordan and Israel. It is generally found at low altitudes, mostly from sea level to 200 m, but can grow at an altitude of up to 1000 m in southern Spain, and up to 1700 m in the south, in Morocco and Algeria.
It is a small to medium-size tree, reaching 15-25 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 60 cm, exceptionally up to 1 m. The bark is orange-red, thick and deeply fissured at the base of the trunk, and thin and flaky in the upper crown. The leaves ("needles") are very slender, 6-12 cm long, distinctly yellowish green and produced in pairs (rarely a few in threes). The cones are narrow conic, 5-12 cm long and 2-3 cm broad at the base when closed, green at first, ripening glossy red-brown when 24 months old. They open slowly over the next few years, a process quickened if they are exposed to heat such as in forest fires.
Carob tree - Ceratonia siliqua
FAM. LEGUMINOSAE
The Carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua, is a leguminous evergreen shrub or tree of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) native to the Mediterranean region. It is cultivated for its edible seed pods. Carobs are also known as St. John's bread. According to Christian tradition, St. John the Baptist subsisted on them in the wilderness.
This tree grows up to 10 meters tall. The crown is broad and semi-spherical, supported by a thick trunk with brown rough bark and sturdy branches. Leaves are 10–20 cm long, alternate, pinnate, and may or may not have a terminal leaflet. The flowers are a green-tinted red, small, numerous, and about 6–12 mm long. They are spirally arranged along the inflorescence axis in catkin-like racemes borne on spurs from old wood and even on the trunk (cauliflory). The fruit is a pod which can be elongated, compressed, straight or curved, and thickened at the sutures. Carob is a member of the legume family, and as such its roots host bacteria which convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates which can be used by plants to make proteins.
Carob was eaten in Ancient Egypt. It was also a common sweetener and was used in the hieroglyph for "sweet" (nedjem). Dried carob fruit is traditionally eaten on the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat. Carob juice drinks are traditionally drunk on the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.
Carob pods were the most important source of sugar before sugarcane and sugar beets became widely available. Nowadays, the seeds are processed for the use in cosmetics, curing tobacco, and making paper.
Wild Olive tree
FAM. OLEACEAE
It has a rounded and dense top which normally grows as a short trunk shrubby tree with flexible branches, which extend from near the soil and have thorny ends.The evergreen leaves are shaped as a spearhead.
The flowers are small, white and fragrant, arranged in short clusters. They blossom from May to June. The fruit is poor in oil and matures in autumn and winter.It is a wild variety of the olive tree and grows naturally among Oak and Kermes Oak trees.It prefers the areas of low altitude. It resists the dryness and the heat but not the intense frosts.
In areas which are degraded or rich in gypsum it associates well with the Mastric tree. It grows slowly, its wood is very hard and heavy. Giving the importance of this tree in the region of Andalucía, at the present, it is valued as a protected specie.
Acacia - Acacia xanthophloea
FAM. LEGUMINOSACEAE
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1773.
Acacias are also known as thorntrees or wattles, including the yellow-fever acacia and umbrella acacias.
There are roughly 1300 species of Acacia worldwide, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas.
The leaves of acacias are compound pinnate in general. In some species, however, more especially in the Australian and Pacific islands species, the leaflets are suppressed, and the leaf-stalks (petioles) become vertically flattened, and serve the purpose of leaves. These are known as phyllodes.
Erythrina - Erythrina crista-galli
FAM. FABACEAE
Erythrina crista-galli is a small tree, the girth of its trunk measuring 50 cm. Normally it grows 5–8 meters tall, although some individuals, such as in the Argentine provinces of Salta, Jujuy and Tucumán, can grow up to 10 m.
The root is a taproot with nodules produced by nitrogen fixing bacteria. The bacteria live in symbiosis with the tree, facilitating the tree's absorption of nitrogen in return for organic substances which the bacteria need. The tree's trunk is woody with irregular, spiny branches. These branches form a layer without definite form[verification needed] and die after flowering.
The red flower, arranged in inflorescences of the raceme type, is pentameric, complete, and of bilateral symmetry. Its calyx is gamosepalous, like a little red thimble. The corolla, like that of other legumes like common beans, is butterfly-shaped; however, the largest petal, called the "standard", is arranged in the lower part.
Laurus camphora
FAM. LAURACEAE
In the same Family with sassafras, cinnamon, and spice bush. The camphor is an evergreen tree, native of Japan, China, and Southern Asia. Trunk straight, much branched above, living to a great age, and known in a few instances to reach a circumference of thirty and even fifty feet. The leaves are alternate, long petioled, oval, smooth, shining, three-nerved, and of a peculiar yellowish-green color, glandular, fragrant. Flowers hermaphrodite, paniclud, on long axillary peduncles; calyx six-cleft, membranous, white, small, numerous,
Pornegranate - Punica granatum
FAM. PUNICACEA
The Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to 5–8 m tall. The pomegranate is native to the region from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region and the Caucasus since ancient times. It is widely cultivated throughout Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, India, the drier parts of southeast Asia, Peninsular Malaysia, the East Indies, and tropical Africa. Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated mainly in the drier parts of California and Arizona for its fruits exploited commercially as juice products gaining in popularity since 2001. In the global functional food industry, pomegranate is included among a novel category of exotic plant sources called superfruits.
The leaves are opposite or sub-opposite, glossy, narrow oblong, entire, 3–7 cm long and 2 cm broad. The flowers are bright red, 3 cm in diameter, with four to five petals (often more on cultivated plants).
Jacaranda - Jacaranda mimosifolia
FAM. BIGNONIACEAE
Jacaranda is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of South and Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. The genus name is also used as the common name.
The species are shrubs to large trees ranging in size from 2-30 m tall. The leaves are bipinnate in most species, pinnate or simple in a few species. The flowers are produced in conspicuous large panicles, each flower with a five-lobed blue to purple-blue corolla; a few species have white flowers. The fruit is an oblong to oval flattened capsule containing numerous slender seeds. The genus differs from other genera in the Bignoniaceae in having a staminode that is longer than the stamens, tricolpate pollen, and a chromosome number of 18.
Several species are widely grown as ornamental plants throughout the subtropical regions of the world, valued for their intense flower displays.
Chamaerops - Chamaerops humilis
FAM. ARECACEAE
Chamaerops is a genus of flowering plants in the family Arecaceae (palm family), comprising a single species Chamaerops humilis (European Fan Palm or Mediterranean Fan Palm). It is native to the western Mediterranean region, in southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Malta) and northwest Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia).
It is a shrub-like clumping palm, with several stems growing from a single base. The stems grow slowly and often tightly together, eventually reaching 2-5 m tall with a trunk diameter of 20-25 cm. It is a fan palm (Arecaceae tribe Corypheae), with the leaves with a long petiole terminating in a rounded fan of 10-20 leaflets; each leaf is up to 1-1.5 m long, with the leaflets 50-80 cm long. It also has numerous sharp needle-like spines produced on the leaf stems; these protect the stem growing point from browsing animals. The flowers are borne in dense, short clusters at the top of the stems; it is usually (but not invariably) dioecious with male and female flowers on separate plants. The fruit is a brown drupe 1-2 cm long.
It is adapted to a Mediterranean climate with cool, moist winters and summer drought, and typically grows on dry hill slopes. It is one of the hardier palms, tolerating winter frosts down to about −12°C,[6] though it does require hot summers for good growth.
It is often grown as an ornamental plant in southern Europe.
Floss Silk tree - Chorizia speciosa
FAM. BOMBACACEAE
The floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa, formerly Chorisia speciosa), is a species of deciduous tree native to the tropical and subtropical forests of South America. It has a host of local common names, such as palo borracho (in Spanish literally "drunken tree"). It belongs to the same family as the baobab and the kapok. Another tree of the Ceiba genus, C. chodatii, often receives the same common names.
The natural habitat of the floss silk tree is the north-east of Argentina, Paraguay, and southern Brazil. It is resistant to drought and moderate cold. It grows fast in spurts when water is abundant, and sometimes reaches more than 25 m in height. Its trunk is bottle-shaped, generally bulging in its lower third, measuring up to 2 m in girth. It is studded with thick conical prickles which serve to store water for dry times. In younger trees, the trunk is green due to its high chlorophyll content, which makes it capable of performing photosynthesis when leaves are absent; with age it turns to gray.The flowers are creamy-whitish in the center and pink towards the tips of their five petals.
Olive tree - Olea europaea var. Europaea
FAM. OLEACEAE
The Olive (Olea europaea) is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean region, from Syria and the maritime parts of Asia Minor and northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea. Its fruit, the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the source of olive oil.
The Olive is an evergreen tree or shrub native to the Mediterranean, Asia and parts of Africa. It is short and squat, and rarely exceeds 8–15 meters in height.
The silvery green leaves are oblong in shape, measuring 4–10 cm long and 1–3 cm wide. The trunk is typically gnarled and twisted.
The small white flowers, with four-cleft calyx and corolla, two stamens and bifid stigma, are borne generally on the last year's wood, in racemes springing from the axils of the leaves.
The fruit is a small drupe 1–2.5 cm long, thinner-fleshed and smaller in wild plants than in orchard cultivars. Olives are harvested at the green stage or left to ripen to a rich purple color (black olive). Canned black olives may contain chemicals that turn them black artificially.