Plant Story -- Pomegranates, Punica granatum, in Story and Symbolism

A myth started me looking up pomegranates.

In Granada, Spain, last fall, the guides explained that Granada was named for pomegranates, granada in Spanish, and that the Moors had brought pomegranates to Spain. Which I heard as "the Moors brought pomegranates to Europe" since they introduced many Middle Eastern and Asian plants to Europe by planting them in Spain.

But I knew that pomegranates played an important role in Greek mythology...so the Moors couldn't have brought pomegranates to Europe.

Pomegranates appear in mythology all over the Old World. Bright red flowers, big fruit full of seeds--everyone noticed them.

Visiting Spain--Wandering the Former Carthusian monastery, Valldemossa, Mallorca

Hills of Mallorca

The island of Mallorca has beautiful beaches (earlier post), but the hills are lovely too. In the hill town of Valldemossa we visited a former monastery which was rich in plants and history.
















A rambling old building, of which I have no exterior photograph (so see link), it was begun as a royal residence, then, between 1399 and 1835, served as a Carthusian monastery. After that it was a private guest house and today it is a museum.

Visiting Spain--Mallorca, palms and sunshine

We set sail from Barcelona in Catalonia, eastern Spain, for Mallorca on a tour with Gohagan Travel and the University of California Alumni Association. Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands, four inhabited islands and some tiny ones, in the Mediterranean east of Spain. They are currently Spainish, but like much of the area, were once Phoenician, Carthaginian (Punic), Roman, and Moorish, Catalan, independent--at least--before becoming Spanish.  

You'll see the spelling Majorca. Same place. The residents spell it Mallorca, so I will too.

coast of Mallorca