Flowers at the Generalife Garden

Flowers at the Generalife Garden is my favourite section in spring and summer. It is an authentic paradise.

Every month the Alhambra’s Council seeks to highlight representative botanical species of the ornamental flora of the monument. I will introduce to you two of my favorite flowers at the Generalife.

Table of Contents

Blue Throatwort Flowering plant

Blue Throatwort (Trachelium caeruleum L.) is a flowering plant from the Western Mediterranean that lives in rocks, cliffs and damp walls.

“Caeruleum”, the second part of its scientific name, means blue in Latin, a clear reference to its flowers, which are small and grow in the form of very attractive, umbellate (umbrella-shaped) inflorescences (groups of flowers).

During the al-Andalus period, their crushed leaves were used as an anti-inflammatory and were applied to the affected area in a poultice. Given its beauty and its useful properties, it is likely that it was allowed to grow on damp walls in the Alhambra, as happens today.

This plant finds excellent refuge, for example, on the walls of the staircase leading up to the balcony overlooking the Partal Pond, where it flourishes alongside another very beautiful plant, the maidenhair fern (Adianthum capillus-veneris L.), one of the few ferns in the Alhambra.

Bride’s Crown or Spiraea

It is a deciduous bush that stands about 2m tall with thin, arrow-shaped leaves, and is a common garden plant. Its generic name “Spiraea” comes from the Greek word “speiraira” (a plant that is used for crowns or garlands) and “speira” (spiral-shaped or twisted).

Its geographical name “cantoniensis” refers to its place of origin (Canton, a province of south-east China).

This species is very typical in Granada gardens, where it grows easily and with vigour. It withstands the cold weather and grows well in sunny places in well-watered beds with good drainage.

In the Alhambra and Generalife, it blooms during April in large bunches of white flowers. It blossoms in great abundance, covering the bush with so many flowers that the branches sag under their weight.