Galician Trees: Providing Shade Through the Ages

As the Camino reaches its final stretch on the road to Santiago de Compostela, the landscape becomes overwhelmingly green.

Galician vegetation includes species that are typical of milder areas and the Mediterranean region. The most spectacular landscape, however, is the Atlantic forest, with its evergreens and a predominance of oaks. The riverbanks are replete with ash trees, alders, and willows. Certain areas have large groves of yews, birches, laurels, beeches, holly trees, and cork oaks.

In addition to these important forests, forest plantations of pine and eucalyptus trees now cover a significant part of the land. There have always been close ties between natural forests and man-made plantations, and many species have been historically linked to traditional village life, where they were exploited for their wood, their fruit (for consumption by both humans and animals), and for the shade they provided.

The oak and the chestnut are the species that best represent the central role played by trees in Galician society. They are also shrouded in symbolism; a trait shared by cypresses, yews, and other trees.

Known in Galician as a carballo, the common oak has been present in Galician life for centuries. These trees live for hundreds of years and can grow to over 130 feet tall. They are commonly found across the entire region, although in the south east, the Pyrenean oak (Quercus pyrenaica), known in Galician as a cerquiño, or rebolo, is more common. On higher ground, the sessile oak (Quercus petraea), known in Galician as a carballo albar, is more common.

The name carballo is a common feature in hundreds of Galician village names. The tree is a powerful symbol of strength, and also played a significant role in the rural economy. In addition to its use as a source of wood, its fruit (the acorn) was used to feed pigs, while its branches provided shade for cattle and farmers alike.

Pilgrims are also glad of the shade provided by these oak trees, which stand alongside roads and in prominent locations in villages. The Camino occasionally passes through oak groves known as carballeiras. These are natural and man-made wooded areas providing large amounts of shade.

Carballeiras traditionally had a central role in village life, as the site of pilgrimages and cattle fairs. Santiago de Compostela has two noteworthy examples: the Saint Susana Carballeira, and the oak grove at the former monastery of San Lourenzo de Trasouto.

There are many others along the Camino: the Carballeira de Francos and the Carballeira de Caldas de Reis on the Camino Portugués; the Carballeira de Santa Irene on the Camino Frances; the Carballeira de A Barcia and the Carballeira de Trasfontao on the Via de la Plata; and the Carballeira de A Casa do Gado on the Camino del Norte.

Castiñeiro is the Galician name for a chestnut tree. It was believed that the Romans were responsible for bringing these trees to Spain, but recent research suggests that they spread throughout the north east of the Iberian Peninsula over 20,000 years ago. Either way, it was the Romans who encouraged their growth and took them all over Spain.

There are some wild chestnut trees in the forests, but the biggest chestnut groves are plantations, usually just outside villages, where they were used for their fruit, the chestnut. For centuries, chestnuts were an important element of people's diet in this region. In fact, when the potato was brought to Europe from the Americas, in Galicia it was nicknamed the earth chestnut.

Chestnuts still play an important role in the local economy. They are sold raw, dried, as a flour, as a cream, or candied (in a confection known as marron glacé). Both the tree and the fruit appear in proverbs, legends, and festivals such as the Magosto festival. This is held in the fall, and involves local residents from every village and neighborhood gathering together to eat roasted chestnuts.

The tree is highly prized for the quality of its wood, which is traditionally used in construction. Those found in the forest known as Fraga de Catasós, in Lalín, were originally grown for this purpose. They are now among the tallest chestnut trees in Europe.

The chestnut tree lives longer than almost any other tree in Europe. There are some in Galicia that may be over 500 years old. The biggest one is in Pumbariños in Manzaneda, with a trunk whose diameter is almost 40 feet. The extraordinary St. Euphemia chestnut tree is in Baños de Molgas, not far from the Silver Way. Its trunk is around 32 feet in diameter.

Pilgrims can touch the bark of the magnificent chestnut trees that line the roads of the Camino; ancient trees that have grown over time to resemble noble old men. The chestnut trees in Soutomerille, on the Camino Primitivo, and the tree in Ramil (Triacastela) on the Camino Frances, are full of hollows and thick branches that look as though they are embracing the trees.

In Baamonde (in the municipality of Begonte) stands a chestnut tree with a unique history. Fifty years ago, the sculptor Víctor Corral hid in the trunk to prevent it being felled for the widening of the road. He carved a small shrine to the Virgin of the Rosary, from which the tree earned its nickname (Castiñeiro da Capela, or the Chapel Chestnut Tree). The artist went on to add more carvings, making this tree something of a landmark on the Northern Way.

The cork oak, known in Galician as a sobreira, is another tree with a long history of use by humans. Cork comes from its bark, which is used in wine bottle stoppers, and as an insulating material. In the past, cork was used to make beehives, known in Galicia as cortizos.

Although these trees are more abundant in other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, there are small forests of cork oaks in the southern part of Galicia, such as in O Faro (Oia), close to the Camino Portugués de la Costa, and along the Ulla and Arnego rivers.

Galicia is also home to some isolated examples of extraordinarily large cork oaks. Several of them are close to the Vía de la Plata, in a region that was home to a cork wine bottle stopper factory in the late 19th century. It's possible that some of the region's monumental cork oaks, such as the one in the village of Siador, supplied bark to the cork industry over a period of several years. With a crown measuring 75 feet in diameter, it is estimated that the tree's bark has been harvested over 100 times.

With their solid, upright appearance, able to reach heights of around 130 feet, and the beauty of their ever-changing leaf colors throughout the year, it is impossible not to fall in love with beech trees. Their name in Galician is faia, and they are relatively scarce in the region, growing mainly in the mountains of Os Ancares and O Courel.

The Faial de Liñares is a beech forest on the Via Francés, between O Cebreiro and the Alto do Poio. It is one of just a small number of Galician beech forests, and the only one traversed by one of the routes of the Camino.

This tree, which grows abundantly alongside rivers, is known in Galician as a freixo. It is an essential part of riverbank forests, along with willows (salgueiros in Galician), alders (amieiros in Galician), and other trees and shrubs. The common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) is common in the north of Galicia, while the narrow-leafed ash (Fraxinus angustifolia) is more commonly found in the southern part.

The hard wood of this tree was used in rural Galicia to make farm tools and musical instruments. The village of Porta, in Sobrado (on the Camino del Norte) is home to four exceptional ash trees. The tallest one is over 100 feet high.

Classical Galician forests are mainly formed of deciduous trees, although there are some native evergreen species. None is as shrouded in legend as the yew tree (known in Galician as the teixo). It was planted in doorways as a symbol of life, and in churches and cemeteries as a symbol of death.

All parts of the yew tree are poisonous, with the exception of the aril (the part of the berry that covers the seed). Roman historians have suggested that a battle took place at an unknown location on Mount Medulio in around 22 BCE, between the inhabitants of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula and Roman legions. The last Galician warriors standing took their own lives by imbibing yew tree poison.

The Teixedal de Casaio, one of Europe's most outstanding yew forests, is nestled in the foothills of Pena Trevinca, Galicia's highest point. There are several ancient yew trees not far from some of the routes of the Camino, such as the one in A Fontaneira (in Baleira, on the Camino Primitivo), which is estimated to be around 500 years old.

This evergreen shrub, with its flat, rigid, glossy leaves, is known as acivro in Galician. It is linked to various different winter rituals throughout Europe, and is strongly associated with Christmas. It grows across the whole of Galicia in raspberry thickets and oak groves, and is especially abundant in the mountains to the east of the region, forming small forests such as the one in Cabana Vella, in Os Ancares.

Its leaves are prickly at the edges, but these prickles tend not to be present at the top of the plants, which are out of the reach of herbivorous animals. They usually grow to between 6 and 16 feet tall, although in the Casanova Pazo in O Pino, close to the French Way, there is a holly tree that is 52 feet high.