A walk among the world’s trees

La Cer­danya is es­pe­cially known for its ski slopes in win­ter and the rest of the year for its em­blem­atic nat­ural spaces, such as Lake Puigcerdà, Lake Mal­niu or the Sierra del Cadí moun­tains. But it also boasts a unique and sin­gu­lar area in which to enjoy na­ture: the botan­i­cal col­lec­tion known as the Arborètum de Queix­ans, in Fontanals de Cer­danya, which in­vites you to take a walk through moun­tain forests from around the world.

Fol­low­ing the 1994 fire, the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment re­pop­u­lated an area of around two hun­dred hectares with more than 300,000 trees. Some 12 hectares were set aside for this large botan­i­cal gar­den, which is home to more than 120 dif­fer­ent tree species, or­gan­ised into five blocks or con­ti­nents ac­cord­ing to the ge­o­graph­i­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion of the species. Set in a moun­tain­ous set­ting, the pro­posed route is some three kilo­me­tres long and be­gins with the forests of the Pyre­nees, con­tin­ues through those of North Amer­ica, and then on through forests from the rest of Eu­rope, Asia, and fi­nally, the rest of the world.

In the itin­er­ary pro­posed by the Ar­bore­tum, vis­i­tors can also see trees from dif­fer­ent for­est en­vi­ron­ments, such as alpine, above 2,300 me­tres in al­ti­tude, sub­alpine, below 2,300 me­tres, mon­tane and basal. Vis­i­tors are pro­vided with in­for­ma­tion about each species planted and can also learn to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween them through their el­e­ments, such as leaves, fruits and trunks. How­ever, “it must be borne in mind that this is a pro­ject for the fu­ture, we still have empty areas and we do not want to cre­ate false ex­pec­ta­tions. In about 20 years, when it is fin­ished, the Arborètum de Queix­ans will be a bench­mark in Cat­alo­nia,” says the Fontanals local coun­cil, who also rec­om­mend a visit to the Arborètum be­cause “it is a very beau­ti­ful walk and one that it is worth it for the unique views of the whole La Cer­danya plain.” The Ar­bore­tum is cur­rently open and ad­mis­sion is free (all in­for­ma­tion at www.​arb​oret​umde​font​anal​s.​cat).

Yet, Fontanals is not the only place in Cat­alo­nia which has an ar­bore­tum to visit. Cabrils, for ex­am­ple, has the Ar­bore­tum of Cat­alo­nia which, with an area of 40,000 m2, con­tains most of the tree and shrub species of Cat­alo­nia in low, medium and high moun­tain en­vi­ron­ments and ri­par­ian for­est (cabrils.cat). In the Ar­bore­tum of Man­lleu (man­lleu.cat, vis­i­tors will find sim­u­la­tions of the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive forests from the Osona re­gion: more than 1,200 feet of 70 dif­fer­ent species and an oro­graphic sim­u­la­tion of the hills of the Plana de Vic. Mean­while, in Masjoan, in Es­pinelves, there are 56 dif­fer­ent species of no­table trees to dis­cover - in­clud­ing some spec­i­mens of mon­u­men­tal trees of Cat­alo­nia (masjoan.com). In Lleida, there is the Dr Pius Quer i Font Ar­bore­tum, a large botan­i­cal gar­den be­long­ing to the Lleida Agri-Food Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Park (PC­i­TAL). It has the four most im­por­tant tree bio­mes on earth (bo­real forests, de­cid­u­ous forests, scle­ro­phyl­lous and tem­per­ate forests) in up to 16 wooded en­vi­ron­ments (ar­bore­tum.parcte­clleida.es).

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