This flower does not rise from fire, it rises from the winter water stored in its bulb.
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Snaking from the dry baked earth like some subterranean serpent, the Asphodels are one of early Autumns miracles.
No rain has caressed this soil for five months or more. The land lies hard and unyielding to the heaviest of treads and it would appear that the long desiccation has squeezed out the last drops of life.
So here the terrain sits, inert, mere packed dust seemingly unable to support the most basic life.
Yet at this time of maximum drought throughout the Dehesa strange forms are emerging.
Almost overnight the dry landscape is pierced by a writhing forest of green spears.
Devoid of leaf they stand erect, gravid with the promise of sweet blossom.
They stay poised like this for perhaps a week, then one morning a shimmering white floral mist meets the gaze as it stretches into the far distance.
The Asphodels have returned to grace the landscape once more.
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These phoenix like plants have stored last winters rains in deep underground bulbs waiting for the wheel to turn to their time in the ecology.
Then, when nothing else remains they flower, the first of the great Autumnal wave. These are the outriders of the second of this places great flowering.
Around me they stand, rampant to the sun in their full tropical lushness, a symphonic counterpoint to the near desert savanahs that surround them.
The flowers are returning.
Photo: Asphodels on the Dehesa. Courtesy of the author.
About Neil Hill
Neil Hill is one of Europe’s top outdoor, wilderness and survival coaches. He believes that our modern disconnect from nature has led to many of our personal, physical and social problems. He has led courses into some of the worlds most hostile and wild environments. His passion is to reconnect people with their aboriginal roots in nature, enabling them to have adventures and experiences that unlock their massive potential, Neil is the founder of Rewilding Bushcraft.
