As I mentioned in my last post, there were two other trees that caught my attention in Portugal.
Eucalyptus groves were found throughout the countryside.  You could usually smell them before you actually saw them.  Most of the trees looked like this, tall and gangly.

Area with full grown eucalyptus trees

We did come across one area that puzzled me, that’s when I started asking questions.  The picture below shows trees that had just been cut.  Within a few weeks of the eucalyptus being cut down they will start to re sprout.  Like this,

close up of the eucalyptus tree bark

After a few months they will look like this,

Eucalyptus trees are one of the fasting growing trees and that’s why they are considered a renewable resource.  The trees here were being cut down to be made into paper.  It can harvested year round and in 3-4 years trees are ready to be re cut again.  Much quicker than cork trees!  That is amazing that such a small “stub” can become a tall tree in 3-4 years.

I kept seeing these cute, small, pine trees and wasn’t sure what type of pine they were.

Stone Pine

Photo I found showing pine nuts before and after being dried

Come to find out they were Stone Pine, where we get delicious pine nuts from. For those of you who make Pesto, you are familiar with this tiny flavorful nut.  The harvest season is from January-March.  A machine is used to shake the pine cones off the tree.  The pine cones are then taken to a factory where they are dried and each “kernel” is removed from behind the scale of the pine cone.  The process is labor intensive which is why pine nuts are expensive.  This variety of pine nut is also known as Pignolia, and is grown mostly in Italy but also in Spain and Portugal.  There are different varieties of pine nuts but pignolia is known as the superior and most widely found in supermarkets.  In North America pine nuts are known as Pinyon and are grown on a different species of pine.  Italians say pinyons are not “true” pine nuts and don’t have the same flavor.

I hope you have found these trees to be as fascinating as I did and maybe you’ve learned something new!