Hot oaks in Madrid

Earlier this week, during a lull in the 20th International Botanical Congress - held in a sprawling convention centre on the outskirts of Madrid (IFEMA Madrid) - I took a walk in the nearby Parque Juan Carlos I. 

Juan Carlos I was King of Spain from 1975 to 2014, and this 160-hectare park honouring the first decade or so of his reign was opened in 1992. It's a huge and hot piece of land. The day I visited, temperatures were heading into the high thirties (Celsius), and I kept as much as possible to paths shaded by trees. Not that this was an easy task, as you can see in these pictures. 

Part of the park is also a celebration of 'Madrid European Capital of Culture', which makes me think the City of Madrid acquired some EU funding. In any case, this is a big and expensive undertaking.

At the heart of the park is a grove of 2800 mature olive trees, planted in parallel lines crossing diagonally the main paths. There are water features, mostly a fetching green colour thanks to the happy algae, and not enough to detract from that beating sun.

Oaks feature, which is why I feel comfortable including this post in my new quercified blog. I'm sure there were holm or ballota oaks (Quercus ilex and Quercus rotundifolia) somewhere but the most significant stand I saw was this copse of American northern red oaks (Quercus rubra) to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks in USA.

There was also this small clump of White and Red Oaks (in the broader sense of the main two sections in Quercus) in what is called Estufa Fría (a 'cold greenhouse' or what we'd call a shade house), at the edge of Jardín de las Tres Culturas (Garden of Three Cultures).

The Estufa Fría presents as a lot of concrete with some ambitious plantings for such a testing environment. Quite a statement, even if I'm not sure what it's saying.

Similarly with the artwork, but that's part of its charm.

I didn't get to the far reaches of the garden - including a Pabellon Islamico (an Islamic Pavilion) - being acutely aware of what happened recently to a few men of my age on Mediterranean islands. I understand I would have seen more art, more olives and maybe another of those icy pole shops that miraged in front of me at one point - which was where I saw one of a only a handful of people (apart from a school group resting in heavily shaded area near the front gate).