Minorca's earlier reputation as a 'bleak and sterile island' is unjustified. In spring and autumn the beauty of innumerable wild flowers on roadside, field and even beach are a constant pleasure. Over 1,000 botanical land specimens have been identified.
Though less wooded than formerly, some 15 per cent of the island's surface is covered by forest, the most extensive being between the playas (beaches) of Santa Galdana and Macarella in the south, and Arenal d'en Castell, Son Saura and La Vall in the north. There are also extensive woods in the vicinity of the towns of Alayor and Mercadal.
Commonest is the Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), which, unlike the Mediterranean maritime pine, has slender, bright green spines and silver-grey twigs and branches: a colourful tree with its reddish-brown cones. When growing, as it often does, almost to the water's edge, its branches provide a pleasing framework for vistas of turquoise seas. Inland one finds the majestic and shady umbrella pine. Beneath the pines and among the ever present rocks of limestone flourish a profusion of lesser evergreen shrubs and trees: the tenacious mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus) with its red clustered flowers, the evergreen holly oak (Quercus coccifera), the sweet-scented myrtle (Myrtus communis) with its white flowers, and the Phoenician juniper (Juniperis phoenicea) with dark-red berries. From the crevices of rocks grow wild olive and fig trees. Many trees bend to the south at the behest of the tramontana; the main trunks of olive trees are often almost horizontal.
In October and early November the forests are waist-deep in purple heath, giving a distinctively Scottish appearance to the landscape, as at Macaret (near Arenal d'en Castell). One treads softly on beaten woodland paths carpeted by the pale mauve merendera (Merendera montana), a flower similar to an autumn crocus, but almost stemless and without leaf, its flower protruding direct from the hard ground. In the same months one comes upon a tiny white narcissus-the autumn narcissus (Narcissus serotinus) in wood and hedgerow.
Once Minorca had more forests, and Armstrong, the author of this book's predecessor, writing in 1752, deplores the depredations of Minorcans themselves. He admits the British did the same, and confesses vividly: 'When the north Winds blow, we lay in our Wood very freely, and regale ourselves Indoors.' 
 

---

11