Stinkwood

Ocotea foetens

Family · Lauraceae · Irritating

The largest tree of the laurisilva, reaching forty metres and living for centuries, with an unpleasant smell in cut wood that gave it its scientific name. Old trunks go hollow and become trail landmarks.

Where it grows

Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Uplands

Also known as

Canary stinkwood, til

In flower

In fruit

How to tell it

A huge tree with a straight trunk and smooth greyish bark that fissures with age. Large, leathery, glossy leaves with clearly visible domatia in the vein axils beneath. The fruit is characteristic: a fleshy acorn seated in a thick cup, like an oak acorn but on a laurel relative. Range: Madeira and the Canaries.

What it is confused with

No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.

What it is for

The timber was much used in joinery and building in Madeira, despite the smell. The fruits are not eaten. There are til trees centuries old on Madeiran trails and they are the oldest trees on the islands.

Sources

Flora-On