The Soutomaior Botanic Park and its camellia collection

Salinero M.C.*, Vela P.,  González M., Neves A., Barros A., Mansilla P

¹Estación Fitopatolóxica do Areeiro, Deputación de Pontevedra, Subida a la Robleda s/n, 36153 Pontevedra, España
* Author for correspondence: carmen.salinero@depo.es

History of the property and the gardens

The Soutomaior Castle, located in Pontevedra province dates back to the 12th century. At that time the castle had a single tower, known as the tribute tower that was damaged after the Irmandiño Wars in the 12^th century. The period of maximum splendour of the castle took place in the 15^th century during the life of Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor, Count of Caminha (known as Pedro Madruga) who finished the walls surrounding the castle and turned it into an impressive building.

Along the 15^th century several members of the Soutomaior family carried out the castle enlargement and restoration. At the end of the same century, during the reign of the Catholic Kings, with the unification of Spain, the defensive and military function of the property was changed and became more productive and residential. For more than 300 years, different members of the Soutomaior family disputed for the property of Soutomaior Castle and thus the property endured a period of total abandonment. In 1795, the dispute was finally settled in favour of Benito Correa y Sotomayor, 4^th Marquis of Mos that turned the property into a manor house, restoring the castle and substituting the coat of arms at the main gate. According to the existing literature of the 18^th century in the property there were fruit trees (bitter and sweet orange trees, lemon trees, apple trees, pear trees and cherry trees among others), a vineyard, horticultural crops, chestnut trees and forestry species surrounding the castle. Although there is no written evidence, some ornamentals surrounding the castle could have been planted before that date.

Fig. 1  Vela, la Ilustración Española, 1884

In 1870 the property was inherited by the Marquis de la Vega de Armijo that was President of the Spanish government and President of the Congress at that time. He restored the main building, turning it into a neo-Gothic castle and created the gardens, whose layout remains unchanged today. Different species were brought from gardens of different nurseries, arboretums and botanic gardens in Europe and we have evidence that some plants were brought from a manor house in Porto (Fig. 1).

Fig. 2  Current appearance of Soutomaior Castle

The English-style gardens could have been designed by the French landscaping architect, Lombard, who also created the gardens of some important Galician manor houses at that time or by a French-Polish architect (Paczevich). José Lopez Otero, a Galician journalist, in 1900 in his book ‘Pontevedra. Recuerdos, monumentos, música y costumbres’ describes the Soutomaior Castle garden saying that the garden is embellished by a great variety of camellias and specimens of Thuja, Araucaria and other conifers, a bandstand, and a small park where plenty of ducks live …The Marchioness de Ayerbe in the book Apuntes históricos sobre Soutomaior (1902) mentions the species that were growing in the garden: ‘Cedar of Lebanon were growing near eucalyptus, and fir trees from the north were growing beside palm and orange trees. Camellias were trees instead of shrubs, and magnolias had the same height as conifers’.

In 1982, Soutomaior Castle was acquired by the Excma. Diputación de Pontevedra. At that time the 35 ha of land comprised the botanic park, a sanatorium and other agricultural facilities. The Diputación de Pontevedra carried out important work on restoring the castle, as well as on the preservation and enlargement of the garden for cultural aims. After restoration, both the gardens and the castle were opened to the public. In addition, a hotel, a restaurant, a café and a banquet room were created (Fig. 2).

In the upper part of the property they planted an indigenous forest, with chestnut trees and a vineyard (removing foreign species such as Eucalyptus and Pinus). They also started an exyensive Camellia collection, and planted apple trees and pear trees of Galician varieties. They also carried out the restoration of the 6 ha of park surrounding the castle. In this Botanic Park grow more than one thousand specimens belonging to 145 different species and 40 botanic families as shown in Table 1. Although angiosperms are the most abundant group in the Botanic Park, gymnosperms constitute an important collection due to the magnificence of their specimens, which stand out among the species growing in the park.

Table 1: Botanic group and number of species, plants and families belonging to each group

 This Botanic Park has plenty of exotic species, some of them included in the Galician Catalogue of Monumental Trees (Rodríguez Dacal & Izco, 2003) and in the Galician Catalogue of Singular Trees (Decree 67/2007, DOGA 17th April). These Catalogues include those specimens growing in our region that deserve special attention, since they are part of our natural and historical heritage (Table 2).

Table 2: Species included in the Galician Catalogue of Monumental Trees (Rodríguez Dacal & Izco, 2003) and in the Galician Catalogue of Singular Trees (Decree 67/2007, DOGA 17th April)

Figure 5: Oldest camellia specimen in the park included in the Galician     Monumental Tree Catalogue (Izco & Dacal, 2003)

Since the 19^th century the Diputación de Pontevedra has been interested in the Camellia culture and in the promotion and diffusion of the camellia as the flower of the Pontevedra province. In 1873 this institution created the Practical Agricultural School in A Caeira that in 1882 edited a catalogue of plants with 130 Camellia cultivars on sale. This centre promoted the camellia culture in the Galician region and mainly in the Pontevedra province at the end of the 19^th century. The small gardens surrounding the Provincial palace of the Deputación de Pontevedra have camellias planted from the 1899 to 1905. The origin of these camellia specimens is unknown but they may belong to the Practical Agricultural School or they could have been introduced from Portuguese nurseries, such as the Real Companhia Agricola Portuense. Since 1965 the Diputación de Pontevedra organizes the International Camellia Show the Diputación de Pontevedra, the most important camellia show in Spain and with the longest tradition in Europe. When the Diputación de Pontevedra acquired the castle, its main aim was to create a camellia collection in the gardens of Soutomaior Castle that will be a reference for all Galician growers, nurserymen and enthusiasts.

Soutomaior Botanic Park and the camellias

When the Soutomaior Castle was acquired by the Deputación de Pontevedra, the garden already had 19 Camellia japonica specimens. Some of these camellias are among the first planted in Spain and rank with those planted at the gardens of other Galician manor houses. One of these specimens has the largest trunk circumference in Galicia and a diameter of canopy of 17 metres and 18 trunks growing from the base of the tree (figure 5). The cultivar name of these old camellia specimens growing in the garden is unknown. These specimens are being identified by the camellia research team working at the Estación Fitopatolóxica do Areeiro using agromorphological characteristics and molecular markers to be included in the Catalogue of the Deputación de Pontevedra collection (Table 3).

Table 3: Height, base circumference, tree crown diameter and number of trunks of the oldest camellias planted in the park

(*) Specimen included in the Galician Catalogue of Monumental Trees (Rodríguez Dacal & Izco, 2003)

 During the garden restoration, from 1982 to 1986, the camellia collection was enlarged using plant material produced at the EFA from cuttings collected from Galician gardens and manor houses, others were donated by individuals like Robert Gimson or were acquired in both Spanish (Nicolás Badía, Maciñeira, Santa Cruz de Ribadulla) and foreign nurseries (Thoby, Trehane, Nuccio’s and Duncan & Davis). All these plants were maintained in the EFA nurseries for some time where they checked their sanitary condition and when they reached an adequate size they were transplanted and distributed in the different areas of the Soutomaior Botanic Park. At the end of 1986 the camellia collection comprised 163 plants and 8 species. Thus, 108 specimens belonged to C. japonica, 4 to C. sasanqua, 10 to C. reticulata and 14 were hybrids.

In subsequent years the camellia collection was enlarged, with plant material obtained from Galician historical gardens and with donations from individuals and nurseries from other countries such as Akashi and Matsumoto (Japan), Ya Yung Huang (China), Ghirardi and Corneo (Italy), Marc de Coninck and Guy Van Rysseghem (Belgium).

At present the camellia collection has 420 camellia plants belonging to 25 different species, including 314 cultivars of C. japonica, 21 cultivars of C. reticulata, 23 of C. sasanqua and 29 cultivars of C x hybrid (Fig. 6).

 References

Bengoechea C, Mansilla P, Salinero C. 1990. Parque y conjunto botánico en Castillo de Soutomaior, ed. Diputación de Pontevedra: 183-242 pp.
Decreto 2007, de 22 de marzo, por el que se regula el Catálogo Gallego de Árboles Singulares (DOG nº 74, de 17 de abril de 2007).
Marquesa de Ayerbe.1904. El Castillo del Marqués de Mos en Soutomaior. Apuntes históricos por la Marquesa de Ayerbe. Establecimiento tipográfico de Fortanet. Madrid.
Rigueiro A,  Bernárdez J.G, Rodríguez C. 2008. Arbores e formacións senlleiras de Galicia. Conselleria do Medio Rural. Xunta de Galicia. 359 pp
Rodríguez C, Izco J. 2003. Árboles Monumentales en el patrimonio cultural de Galicia. Xunta de Galicia. 820 pp