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Mossèn Costa i Llobera Gardens

A walk among cactus and with a view of the sea

A surprising collection of succulent plants makes the Gardens of Mossèn Costa i Llobera one of the most important in Europe within its speciality.

As you approach the slopes of Montjuïc from the Miramar Gardens you will find an unusual green space. Between the cliffs of the mountain and the coastal ring, there is a collection of plants as exotic as incredible, most of them with a meaty consistency, covered with spikes and adapted to live with very little water. These are the Gardens of Mossèn Costa i Llobera, one of the most important spaces specialized in cactus and succulent plants in Europe, and with a spectacular view to the port of Barcelona. One of those corners of the city worth visiting.

The crass or succulent plants are incredible beings. Many of them are the result of millions of years of adaptation to arid environments during which they have learned to store water inside. They are common in deserts and areas with persistent droughts, and their strategy is to absorb water in the short and torrential rainfall episodes of these areas and avoid its evaporation as much as possible. In general, the plants transpire through the pores in their leaves. This allows them to pump water to their canopy and carry out photosynthesis. Plants that live in deserts have evolved to survive drought, which means they lose less water. As a result, they have reduced their leaves and suppressed the pores through which water evaporates. In fact, the thorns of the cactus are leaves extremely transformed throughout evolution and the green part, where photosynthesis takes place, corresponds to the stem. Succulent plants have developed other adaptations to capture water where there is none, such as developing a large root surface or forming a cover of hairs that cause the humidity in the air to condense and form dew that the plants use to survive.

The result of all these adaptations is an enormous diversity of plants, with fascinating shapes, coverings and sizes, a lot of them present in the Gardens of Mossèn Costa and Llobera. The park was the initiative of Joan Pañella, a master of the gardening school who specialized in greasy plants, and the architect Joaquim Maria Casamor. The gardener had been putting into practice for years the adaptation of specimens from the Canary Islands, Andalusia and other corners of the Mediterranean, and in 1970 the first version of the gardens was inaugurated. Today, the gardens are a vast collection of greens from many corners of the world where water is a scarce commodity, including for plants.

More information in this link.

 

 

Publication date: Monday, 17 August 2020
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