A few corners of the Costa Brava have escaped real estate pressure. This is the case of the magnificent Marimurtra Botanical Garden, in Blanes. Carl Faust, a German businessman passionate about botany, decided in the twenties of the last century to invest his fortune in the creation of a paradise of vegetation in Blanes. "Faust wanted a space that would be a living demo for the great botanists of central and northern Europe, with the aim that they would not have to travel to see succulent plants and other exotic species in Mexico, South Africa, northern Morocco...", Josep Borrell, director of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden for many years, explains to me.I am in the oldest part of the garden, dedicated to cacti and succulent plants. "They were planted in this sloping area and gravel was put down so that water would not accumulate and damage the roots," Josep explains to me. There is a great variety of cacti, some of giant size, bigger than me. With Josep, I take a peaceful walk through the garden. It is a journey through the five continents, especially through places with a Mediterranean and subtropical climate. In addition to vegetation, fauna is also a protagonist: migratory birds, small reptiles... find refuge here. And insects! Without insects, there are no plants. Marimurtra introduced beehives for pollination, and now they have very good honey, which they have for sale. It is a honey from more than a thousand flowers and with an ever-changing and surprising taste: the bees have many combinations of flowers at their disposal.Suddenly Josep stops. "Look, the Wollemia nobilis!", he tells me. We are in front of a tree I had never seen before. If you go to see it, it will surprise you. It must be a little over 4 meters tall. This species coexisted with dinosaurs, and survived practically unchanged for millions of years. It was thought to be extinct. It is considered a "living fossil"."The Wollemia nobilis was discovered in 1994, near Sydney, in the Blue Mountains. It was found by a young park ranger, David Noble, exploring hard-to-reach ravines and rappelling", explains Enric Barril, head of biological collections at Marimurtra. "Its generic name, Wollemia, comes from the name of the national park where the discovery took place (Wollemi), and the specific epithet (nobilis) is a tribute to its discoverer and its majesty (in Latin nobilis means noble)", specifies Enric. "It is critically endangered. The exact place where it lives is an intact and pristine area. It is not known where. Well, only a few know", he tells me. "To preserve it" I say. "Yes, of course. But an international distribution of clones of specimens and seeds was made to some botanical gardens and scientific institutions to ensure its conservation ex situ. Thanks to this, we have this one here, at Marimurtra. Notice that it is slightly raised from the ground level. We have done this to prevent water from stagnating at the collar of its roots", Enric explains to me.Seed exchanges between botanical gardens are very common. They are mainly done to protect endangered species and for conservation projects. "We have our own seed bank and a catalog that we keep updated," Josep, who knows a lot of botanical gardens around the world, tells me. "Traveling is the cheapest way to learn," he says. "But I still have to go to the Hanbury Botanical Garden, located at Capo Mortola, in Italy, also by the sea, and integrated into the landscape – an inheritance from the English garden–. Faust was inspired by this Italian garden to create Marimurtra".I didn't have to wait long to witness a scene that repeats itself a few times a day. Two girls with Asian features, dressed in shades of red, come skipping down the stairs flanked by cypresses – Epicurus's staircase – to Linné's temple. It is a small temple that imitates the style of classical Greece dedicated to Carl von Linné – the father of modern taxonomy – located on the edge of the cliff of Cala sa Forcanera.Social networks have made this circular gazebo an object of desire for many people from all over the world, some of whom travel 9,000 kilometers to take a photo there, like the Chinese. "We have translated many texts from QR codes into Chinese," says Josep. "We have hired a native Chinese community manager to attend to the community from their country. For us, it is key that she can interact with them not only in their language, but also with their codes," he adds. "We have the challenge that they don't just come to take a photo," Josep tells me. "We are thinking about what else we can offer them so they can get to know the garden, its collection, and Faust's work." I make a zoom out with my gaze and I get an essentially bicolor picture: the green of the vegetation and the blue of the sea, and some white brushstrokes, which make the sea very rough. Then I close my eyes and feel even more the great variety of smells, and the sound of the waves that embrace the beach. And I put myself in the shoes of someone who does not have the sense of sight, who, in their own way, can also enjoy this magnificent garden by the sea.Historical images of weddings and other eventsA few years ago, to mark the centenary, the Cal Faust Foundation, which manages the Marimurtra Botanical Garden in Blanes, put out a call to receive old photographs from those who have taken photos of family celebrations there. It has been, and continues to be, a common practice for the people of Blanes, the inhabitants of the region, and beyond. This is the case of Josep's parents, who had their wedding photos taken there. The call – which remains open – allows us to learn about details of the garden from years past. Participants receive a gift: an annual pass.

Now that, unfortunately, fires are once again occupying a large part of the news and the debate on forest management and prevention tasks is being revived, it is opportune to recommend a documentary series from Arte France that Canal 33 broadcasts on Monday evenings. You will also find it on the 3Cat platform (not very well labeled). It is titled L’arbre qui cache la forêt and has been translated into Catalan as L’arbre que amaga el bosc. In French, it plays on the expression equivalent to ours of “trees that do not let you see the forest.”The series starts from a very attractive premise, which affects the way of narrating more than the overall content. Each chapter starts with a historic and emblematic tree from a territory: the birch of the Great North, the thuja of the Great Pacific Northwest Rainforest, the giant eucalyptus of Australia, the baobab of Madagascar, the European oak, or the ceiba of the Amazon. The tree is the excuse to explain the entire forest ecosystem that is articulated around that majestic and centuries-old specimen chosen as the protagonist. As often happens in this type of productions, it is a relaxing and privileged window to observe the world. With the giant thuja, we travel to the west coast of Canada, to a forested area of sixty-four thousand square kilometers. With the birch, we discover the surface of more than one billion hectares of boreal forest that occupies the northernmost part of the planet.The tree that hides the forest is fascinating. It goes from making us observe the most minute details, focusing the lens on the most imperceptible spores or the insects that inhabit the trunk, to the contrast of the general plan, showing the tapestry that the treetops draw or the role of the salmon-filled river in nourishing the vegetation. The work of realization and photography is so careful (and perhaps a little too color-retouched) that the image ends up looking like one of those screen saver postcards that computers offer by default, which seem almost magical in their spectacularity. Locations that, due to their imposing vegetation and the solitude of the place, also have something sublime, of hidden mystery. The dubbing into Catalan is of great linguistic richness and lends the narration a slightly affected tone to force the poetic. You get used to it easily, even though the narrative intensity is a bit exaggerated. The story is added to by the testimony of experts in that corner of the world: biologists, ecologists, activists, sculptors, mycologists, and specialists in the most unheard-of disciplines that landscape can present. From any detail almost invisible to the human eye, a whole well of knowledge grows. It is fascinating to discover the influence that the tracks of millions of reindeer have on the shape of a forest and their impact on carbon capture. The series transcends trees in particular and the forests they portray to remind us of the complexity and importance of these ecosystems. Watching these documentaries makes you understand the tragic extent of fires and the little importance we give to forests.

In the historic Down House, the house where Charles Darwin lived for 40 years in Kent, England, there was a space that was key to developing the theory of evolution that would bring the English naturalist worldwide fame. And it's not the table where he wrote The Origin of Speciesbut rather his garden. There, Darwin spent hours conducting small experiments with plants, such as the so-called Darwin's orchid or Christmas orchid, from Madagascar. It is a very particular species, with an extraordinarily long nectary, over 20 centimeters. The scientist predicted the existence of an insect capable of reaching the hidden nectar. The butterfly would be discovered decades later, confirming an intuition based solely on botanical observation.