A botanical garden is to open at the end of the year in “Los Alcornocales”, one of the province of Cádiz’s most important Nature Reserves. Named “El Aljibe”, it will house species which can not be found anywhere else on the peninsula.

Here you can find cork and gall oaks as well as the famous “canutos”, the headwaters and riverbeds which form the last forest to be found in the South of Europe.

Besides trees and bushes from the region, this botanical garden will be home to 185 protected species, some of which are usually found in subtropical forests or from other eras. Visitors can see ferns such as pslotum nudum or Christella dentate which became extinct on the Iberian Peninsula and which the Andalucía’s environment ministry has reintroduced from spore.

The task of planting the 1500 examples of 300 different perennial species has now been completed. In spring it will be the turn of the annual varieties.

In the garden visitors will find many relics from the Tertiary Age which have taken refuge in what are known as “canutos” and on the hillsides and mountaintops near the Straits of Gibraltar, where the horizontal precipitation or fog, which is a constant feature throughout the year, creates authentic forests of mist.

The new centre will have special guided routes, reception areas, parking areas and workshops for environmental activities. It will occupy a site of about one hectare in the visitor’s centre of the Alcornocales Nature Reserve by the Jeréz-Los Barrios road in the municipality of Alcalá de los Gazules.

The local sandy soil coupled with the special weather conditions of the area gives rise to unique plant life. With considerable mist and rainfall combined with a gentle climate create ideal conditions for the growth of exuberant lush vegetation.

The centre was set up fundamentally to protect the unique local vegetation and to make the public aware of the importance of the region’s biodiversity and of the need to preserve the great variety of flora in the region from extinction.

At present there are two botanical gardens open to the public in the province of Cádiz: “El Castillejo” in El Bosque (Sierra de Grazalema) and the botanical garden in San Fernando in the Bay of Cádiz. The new centre, with a budget of 507,707.36 euros, is one of three new botanical gardens created by the Andalusian parliament’s environmental office to help recover more than 150 protected species in the autonomous community.