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Macaronesia |
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Madeira
is located in the biogeographical region of the Macaronesia. Together
with the Madeiran archipelago this region includes the Canaries and
the Azores group of islands. The CapeVerde archipelago much to the
south, is also part of this region.  |
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| Macaronesia
is well known for having within its limits, similarities on the plant
associations and many endemic species that are unique to this region.
One can find, and in Madeira in particular, very old forests made
up by species that once covered most of southern Europe. While in
the continent, the Quaternary glaciations destroyed all of the plant
cover. The Atlantic islands did not suffer such treatment as the glaciations
did'nt get that far south. So the forests (Laurisilva), that you can
walk today in Madeira are the relicts of the ancient pre-glaciation'
southern european ones. They have been declared by the IONESCO
World Natural Heritage Site. |
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| At
Aviceiros
we can indicate where and how to get to the most fascinating places.
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| Diversity |
| Madeira
has 780 indigenous plants and from these 157 are endemic to the island.
It is a real botanist dream island!! Montado dos Aviceiros has an
interesting variety of the high altitude endemic species and is close
to important pockets of Laurisilva. |
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