Blog: Marimurtra alive

Des del Jardí Botànic Marimurtra, us donem a conèixer la Biomarató de Flora Espanyola, que té lloc del 18 al 21 de maig i és promogut per la “Sociedad Española de Botánica” (SEBOT).

La Biomarató consisteix en la cerca d’espècies vegetals que posteriorment seran identificades amb l’ajuda d’experts. Per tant, els ciutadans que ho vulguin poden fotografiar plantes i pujar les fotografies a la plataforma iNaturalist, alhora que gaudeixen de la natura i aprenen sobre la biodiversitat vegetal que ens envolta.

Al Jardí Botànic Marimurtra trobareu més de 4000 espècies vegetals, moltes d’elles etiquetades amb el seu nom científic. Us convidem a fer d’explorador pel Marimurtra, podeu escollir les plantes que més us agradin, fer-ne una fotografia i pujar-la a l’aplicació iNaturalist.

Per participar cal registrar-se al Projecte de la “III Biomaratón de Flora Española” a l’aplicació iNaturalist. Cada usuari pot pujar les fotografies de plantes que vulgui i aquestes observacions quedaran registrades vinculades al projecte de la Biomarató.
Per a participar, no és imprescindible conèixer el nom de la planta, els usuaris amb més experiència proposaran la identitat de l’espècie de cada fotografia.

Per a què serveix una Biomarató?
Les observacions registrades i confirmades pels experts, es pugen a una xarxa de dades mundial d’ús lliure (Gbif). Aquestes dades són de molta utilitat per a la recerca científica. Es poden estudiar temes com la presència de certes espècies en perill d’extinció, o inclús la seva evolució i abundància lligada als efectes del canvi climàtic, per exemple.

Descarregueu-vos l’APP d’iNaturalist

The April 23th is celebrated in Catalonia as St. Jordi, a Catalan festival where roses and books become the protagonists.

It is celebrated in honor of Sant Jordi, the patron saint of Catalonia. Legend has it that Saint George defeated a dragon to save a princess and, from the spilled blood, a red rose emerged which he gave to the princess. Since then, giving a red rose to Sant Jordi has become a tradition to express love.

At Marimurtra you can enjoy a special day surrounded by nature while taking part in the tradition of exchanging books. The custom of giving books to Sant Jordi originated in 1923, when Book Day was established in tribute to two great writers: Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, who died on the same date in 1616. Since then, Catalans celebrate this holiday by buying and giving away books, making it a very special literary day.

You can bring your book and exchange it for another, or choose the one you like best. See you on Sant Jordi at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden! Happy Book Day and Happy Sant Jordi!

They took possession of their position at the last meeting of this body, last February 23rd

The Foundation’s Board of Trustees incorporated three new members at its last plenary meeting. The three new patterns are:

Jennifer Witty-Che, MsC (Barcelona, ​​1970), is a biologist specialized in Ecology, Bsc from the University of Norwich, and Master in Conservation Biology, Msc from the University of Kent, both in England. She has experience in Environmental Outreach at different universities, especially the American University, Yola, Nigeria, and accumulates different academic and work activities in the United States and the United Kingdom, where the link with the Durrell Wildlife Preservation Trust stands out.

Teresa Garnatje (1960) is a doctor in Botany specialized in Cytogenetic and Evolutionary aspects in addition to the Phylogeny or Evolutionary History of plants.
As a researcher and principal researcher, she has developed a good part of her career at the CSIC and the Botanical Institute of Barcelona, ​​where she was director from 2015 to 2022.

Rafel Ferrer (Blanes, 1973) has a degree in Business Management and Administration, he completed a degree at the University of Staffordshire (BA in Business and Administration). Master in Marketing and Commercial Management for Esade and post-graduate studies in Digital Transformation in the specialization Course in Customer Value Management at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

The Board of Trustees of the Carl Faust Foundation is the body that governs it. According to its statutes, the maximum number of members is 13, a number that has already been reached with these three recent additions.

Precisely, by virtue of these statutes the board of trustees of the Carl Faust Foundation must at all times be composed of members of at least four nationalities, a condition now fulfilled by having members of Spanish nationality (8), German (2 ), British (2) and Swiss (1).

In 2018, the Marimurtra Botanical Garden started monitoring the birds that nest and live in the garden. For this purpose, 16 nest boxes have been installed in the garden to promote the nesting of the different species that interact with the garden and thus promote biodiversity within it. The maintenance of the nest boxes has made it possible to verify that a nest has been built in six of them.

There are also nine feeders installed throughout the garden, which are checked and filled weekly. In each garden you can find a table feeder, a tubular feeder and a rectangular feeder to which we add different combinations of seeds and nuts.

Weekly, three samplings are carried out in different parts of the Garden, noting those species that have been observed and during the year five more samplings have been carried out spaced in time. A total of 545 birds have been recorded in the garden, corresponding to 34 different species. The most abundant species have been the Tudó (Columba palumbus), the Blue Tern (Parus caeruleus), the Herring Gull (Larus michahellis), the Robin (Erithacus rubecula), the Grosbeak (Serinus serinus), the Blackcap (Sylvia melanocephala) and the Long-tailed Mallerenga (Aegithalos caudatus). Of the 34 species observed, 24 are likely nesting species and seven are safe.

The presence of three interesting new species stands out: the Woodpecker (Loxia curvirostra), the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) and the Plumed Cormorant (Phalacrocorax aristotelis). Of particular note is the pair of Woodpeckers observed in March, which could be a wintering or potential nesting pair.

All this data collected at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden is added to the database of the Catalan Institute of Ornithology (ICO) within the Birds of the Gardens project.

From an early age, man has used what they have at his disposal to build huts and shelters. Whether to guard against inclement weather or to get a hotter room, the use of stones, branches and leaves has become the walls, beams and roofs of these huts.

Today we continue using these materials in construction and although clay or slate tiles are the most commonly used, we still find constructions where the nature provides the materials needed to save us from rain and sun.

We want to introduce you the specie Thamnochortus spiciger (Thunb.) Spreng. this specie is native from South Africa, specifically from the West Cape of Good Hope. Traditional houses and huts in this area are built with Thamnochortus spiciger (called “olifantsriet” or “dekriet” in Afrikaans) roofs. In the Marimurtra’s Botanical Garden you can find this species in the third garden, just in front of the cliff, in the Fynbos vegetation area.

In Catalonia, we have also traditionally used other species to build roofs and houses, such as the common reed (Phragmites australis) in the tradicional houses Delta de l’Ebre (south Catalonia), or ling (Calluna vulgaris) and diferent species of heath (Erica sp.) in the case of the mountain huts and shelters builts arround the Iberian Peninsula.

In other countries, we also find the use of these materials in roof construction, as would be the case oh the english cottages where they use different plants in their construction such as common reed, bulrush (Typha sp.) or rye (Secale cereale) among others; palm trees are also widely used as the specie Arenga pinnata on the roofs of the Meru Towers in Bali or other palm species in constructions in Vietnam, Hawaii or Cuba.

As a curiosity, we will finish with a seaweed roof from the Læsø island in Denmark:

Last February 6, the Marimurtra Botanical Garden received the visit of Mrs. Inés Jiménez, Councilor for the Environment of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria. The context of the visit was marked by the events preceding the double commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Viera y Clavijo Botanical Garden, in Gran Canaria, and the 50th anniversary of the death of its creator, the Swede Erik Svensson, later known as Sventenius. Both anniversaries will take place in 2024.

The reception that was organized revolved around the figure of Sventenius, since from 1935 to 1940 he was the gardener and botanist of Marimurtra. A close collaborator of Carl Faust who had, among other things, the haphazard task of running the Marimurtra Botanical Garden through the Spanish Civil War, a task he did successfully while ensuring its survival. To do so, he even went so far as to hang the Swedish flag at the entrance to the Garden to declare it a neutral zone and protect it from attacks from both sides.

Sventenius was a prolific gardener and scientist specializing in cacti who also lived a phase of his life collecting and sorting around the monastery of Montserrat until he moved to the Canary Islands. There he first became involved with the Orotava acclimatization garden and later was the promoter of the Veira y Clavijo de Gran Canaria botanical garden until his untimely death in 1974.
The reception consisted of a description of the figure of Svenenius elaborated by the historian of science and patron of the Carl Faust Foundation, Josep Maria Camarasa. The president of the Cristòfol Jordà Foundation was in charge of reading it in front of the Environment Minister himself and other authorities invited to the event, such as Ms. Sofia Geli Stenhammer, consul of Sweden in Barcelona, ​​and Mrs. Marina Vall-llosada, Councilor for the Environment of Blanes City Council. The patrons Mr. Joaquim Valls and Mr. Rafel Ferrer, in addition to the current director of the Viera y Clavijo botanical garden, and former researcher of Marimurtra, Mr. Juli Caujapé

From this fruitful meeting, the foundations have been laid to bring to terms more actions of collaboration between the two botanical gardens, both for the celebrations related to Sventenius and in other areas of common interest.

Això ha estat possible gràcies a la posada en marxa d’una nova estació meteorològica que s’ha situat al 1er Jardí

Després d’un període inicial de proves, la Fundació Carl Faust ha posat en marxa de forma definitiva l’estació meteorològica que s’ha instal·lat al 1er Jardí (essencialment sub-tropical), les dades de la qual són permanentment accessibles a través del web de Marimurtra i, en concret, a la URL www.marimurtra.cat/meteo

Aquesta estació meteorològica recull fins a 6 paràmetres de tres sensors situats en punts diferents: temperatura, humitat (ambiental i del sòl), pluja, vent (direcció i velocitat), pressió atmosfèrica i radiació solar. La posada en marxa de l’estació es va fer amb la col·laboració dels meteoròlegs Robert Sáez i Pere Casulleras.

Es dona la circumstància que els actuals estatuts de la Fundació Carl Faust preveuen la tasca de recol·lecció de dades meteorològiques al Jardí Botànic Marimurtra en el seu article 2, punt c), quan s’estableix que aquest àmbit d’acció formarà part també dels fins fundacionals.

Des de fa ja més d’una dècada, el Jardí Botànic Marimurtra acull una altra estació meteorològica al 3er Jardí (essencialment Mediterrani), en aquesta ocasió de la xarxa AEMET (https://www.aemet.es/ca/eltiempo/prediccion/municipios/blanes-id17023) amb qui la fundació ha mantingut i manté un conveni de col·laboració i les dades de la qual també s’ofereix en obert a través del portal d’AEMET. En aquesta ocasió, però, la Fundació Carl Faust ofereix unes dades en obert captades en un punt diferent del Jardí Botànic Marimurtra i a través d’una estació meteorològica pròpia.

La Fundació Privada Carl Faust va ser creada el 1951 per Carl Faust amb l’objectiu de donar continuïtat a la seva obra, el Jardí Botànic Marimurtra. Entre els seus objectius fundacionals hi figuren “…la protecció i el foment dels estudis de biologia mediterrània, especialment en botànica, […] cercant la cooperació i les relacions internacionals en benefici, tot plegat, de la recerca i de la divulgació científiques…”.

El Jardí Botànic Marimurtra té la qualificació de Bé Cultural d’Interès Nacional i el 2009 la Fundació Privada Carl Faust va ser distingida amb la Creu de Sant Jordi de la Generalitat de Catalunya.