THE SPANISH VEGETATION

LA VEGETACIÓN
ESPAÑOLA
Biogeographic regions
Regiones biogeográficas
Biogeographic regions
Biogeographic regions
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS
Eurosiberian region:

● Alpine region: located in the highest peak of the Pyrenees and the
Cantabrian mountain range.
● Euroatlantic: located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.

Mediterranean region: the whole peninsula, apart from the Eurosiberian

region.

Macaronesica region: Canary archipelago.

BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS
The Spanish vegetation has a wide variety of species, more than 6000.

This is due to different factors:

● In the Peninsula, these factors are: climate, relief, and soil

● In the Canary archipelago: latitude, climate, the volcanic origin and the
insularity in itself

Apart from that, the human factor plays an important role: bringing new
interesting species for their economic value and degrading the existing
vegetation.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian
Each one of these biogeographic regions have their characteristics and
plant formations:

Eurosiberian biogeographic region: that comprises the Alpine region and

the Euroatlantic region. (North and Northwest of the Iberian P).

● In general, the climate has mild temperatures and high humidity during
the whole year.
● The type of forest is deciduous, which rises 25/30 meters high.
● It is a leafy forest, it means that the light doesn’t touch the soil, as a
result, nor bushes neither herbaceous substrate can grow up.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian region
The plant formations in the Eurosiberian region are:
deciduous forests, heath and fields.
Deciduous forest Heath
Bosque caducifolio Landa

Fields
Prados
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian region
Deciduous forest, it consists of the following elements:

1. Tall trees, with straight trunks and big leaves that fall in autumn. Different
species of trees usually live in big masses. The most important ones are:
oaks and beech.
2. In the soil, they grow ferns and moss(helechos y musgos).
beech
ferns and moss
oak
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian region
Deciduous forest. There are several types of oaks.

● Until 500/600 meters high we find common oaks.

● Above 600 meters high the common oak is replaced by sessile oak
(roble albar), more resistant to cold and drought and less demanding in
moisture.
● Beech: it grows above 800 meters high. It endures cold and moisture
very well.

Other secondary species in this kind of forest are the chestnut forest, tila,
elms, ash trees, maple, and hazelnuts.

These days and due to different circumstances as burnings, planned or not,

the forest is being replanted with other species that grow really quickly as
pine trees and eucalyptus.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian region
Heath (landa) the most common vegetation is the thicket/brush that can
reach 4 meters high.

The species are:

● Heather brezo.
● Heath brecina. Heather-brezo
Heath-brecina
● Gorses tojo.
● Brooms retama Gorses
Toxo

Broom-retama
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Eurosiberian region
Fields have a large extension, there are a lot of grass and pastures. These
kinds of vegetation appear because of human action by eliminating heaths
and forests.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region

Located in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic archipelago.

Nevertheless, there is an area in the Mediterranean region which

comprises the south part of the Eurosiberian region towards East and the
South of the Pyrenees Mountain Range.

The plant formations are from both regions: Eurosiberian and

Mediterranean, although the first one predominates.

The type of forest is called marcescent.

BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Marcescent is the type of tree that keeps the old leaves on the branches
until the new ones are born.

The most common species in the

marcescent forest:

● Pyrenean oak(rebollos/melojos):

it requires most moisture

● Gall oak(quejigos): it

appears in drier areas

BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Located in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic archipelago.

The typical vegetation formation is:

● Evergreen forest.
● Thicket ( maquis, garrigue, steppe).

All of them adapted to the

summer drought, they have big roots

to get water and evergreen and hard leaves.

Most of them have resin, wax or rubber as protectors.

 BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Evergreen forest:

● Medium-height forest.
● The bark is thickness and rough.(corteza gruesa y rugosa)
● The crown has a globular shape to prevent sunstroke and evaporation of the
soil.

The most important species are holm oak and cork oak.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Holm oak: it is the most characteristic and widespread tree

It is drought and cold resistant, it adapts itself to any kind of soil. We can find it at
1000 m or even 2000 m high.

Holm oak is used to take advantage of wood and acorns.

The best holm oaks forests are located in Morena M. range, and Guadarrama M.
range.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Cork oak: it needs mild winters, and more moisture than the holm oak (besides
siliceous soil). The bark is used to get the cork.

Other secondary trees in this biogeographic region are:

● Pines.
● Savins. (sabina)
● Carobs. (algarrobo)
● Wild olive. (acebuche)

Currently, this type of forest is being preserved by the Meadow system

BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mediterranean region
Thicket: maquis, garrigue, and steppe.

Both the maquis and the garrigue are bush formations.

The maquis is a bush dense formation, it can reach 2 m high.

The garrigue has low-rise bushes and shows rock zones.

The steppe is a semi-arid plants formation, located in the southeast. The

drought doesn’t allow the growth of trees and bushes. it only grows up low
grasses and prickly bushes.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mountainous zones
In the mountains, the vegetation is arranged in floors, each one has different
types of vegetation depending on the height where they are.

Other factors to find different kinds of vegetation, apart from altitude are:

● Precipitations, depending on the type: water, snow, fog or dew (rocio).

● Lower temperatures as the altitude increases.
● Windward and leeward sides of the mountain.
● The exposure of the slopes to the sun.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mountainous zones

Nival FIELDS
<3.000 m
FIR

Alpine
BEECH
2.400-3.000

Subalpine
PINE
1.200-2.400 m

OAK
Forest
800-1.200 m. GALL OAK
Basal 600-800 m.
HOLM OAK
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mountainous zones

High mountain grass- pasto de

alta montaña

Juniper- enebro

Beech- hayas

Oak and ash tree- robles y

fresnos

Willow trees, ash trees, alder

trees- sauces, fresnos y alisos
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mountainous zones
The windward slope has atlantic
vegetation and the leeward one has
mediterranean.

5. Junipers. Enebros
4. Birch trees. Abedules
3. Pyrenean oak. Melojo
2. Willow trees, ash trees, alder
trees.Sauces, fresnos y alisos.
1. Holm oaks and cork oaks.
Encinas y alcornoques
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Mountainous zones
It is located in Morena
SIERRA MADRONA (Ciudad Real) Mountain system. It is a good
example of the wide variety in
vegetation of the
Mediterranean mountains.
1. Willow trees, ash trees,
alder trees.Sauces, fresnos y
alisos.
2 Holam oaks and rockroses.
encinas y jaras
3. cork oaks, arbutus, gall oak.
Alcornoques, madroños y
quejigos.
4. Pyrenean oaks. Melojos
5. Heather, rockroses,
brushes. Brezo, jaras y
matorrales
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
It comprises the next archipelagos:
● Canary
● Cape Verdean
● Azores
● Madeira
● Wild Islands
Macaronesia means “Fortunate Islands”.
It is a biogeographic concept.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
The landscape is different from the one in the Peninsula, this is due to the
latitude, the climate, the volcanic origin and the insularity in itself.

It has a wide variety of vegetation and many endemisms.

La Palma island is a good example to show Macaronesia vegetation, from

the brushes adapted to the drought to the laurisilva overcast by fog.

The most common forest is the one with canary pines with a large variety in
vegetation included the laurisilva (bay-laurel, tile-tilo, viñátigo y barbusano)
 BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
1.brushes: tabaiba and
cardón
LA PALMA (Santa Cruz de Tenerife)
2.juniper(enebro), wil
olive, acebuche,palms
and dragons trees
(drago)
3.pine forest,
laburnum (codeso)
and amagantes
4.beech-heather and
pine forest Fayal-
brezal y
pinares
5 Laurisilva
6. pine forest with
cedars and brushes
and laburnum
Pinar con
cedro y
matorral con
codeso
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
C
Most of this vegetation is adapted to the drought. a
r
d
The vegetation that appears between 300-500 m high has o
n
the next characteristics:

● The stems can store water during months.

Dragon
● Most of them are succulent plants, for instance, tabaibas and cardones.

The vegetation that appears between 200-800m high is:

● Palm trees and dragons.

● Savins and bushes from the Mediterranean region.
Tabaiba
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
Between 800-1200 m high, in the windward, because of the warm temperatures
and high precipitations, it appears:

● the laurisilva forest with bay-laurel, tile-tilo, viñátigo, barbusano, acebiño,

sanguino, and other 20 different species.

Between 1200-1400 m high the laurisilva forest

disappears by the human action.

The forest suffers degradation to become a bush

formation called beech-heather

BIOGEOGRAPHIC REGIONS: Macaronesia
Between 1400- 2200 m high the conifer forest is found, in which the canary pine is
the main species.

Apart from that, there are tabaibas, rockroses, thyme, laburnum, and brooms

In higher altitudes, the Canary cedar is found.

From 2200 m high to up, in the Teide mountain

(the highest peak in Spain) the Violeta del Teide is found.

It is an endemism.