The Canary Islands are home to very many endemic types of Echium and the Mt Teide Bugloss or Red Bugloss (E. wildpretti) is a plant symbolic of Tenerife where it grows high on the mountain it is named after. This unusual plant is a biennial that produces a large rosette of leaves in its first year which is followed by a tall flowering spike in its second year. The tiny flowers are a pinkish-red but there are many thousands of them and its flower spikes can grow to as much as three metres in height. They stand out like weird red wands above the otherworldly and barren terrain on Mt Teide, which is the highest mountain, not only in Tenerife but in all of Spain.

The Red Bugloss is a very rare plant in the wild, and only found on Mt Teide and around the village of Vilaflor which is also high in the Tenerife mountains. The plant has evolved to be adapted to the cold nights and bright sunlight by day of the habitats it is found in, though it is also grown at lower levels of the island in parks and gardens. Because of its tall flowering spikes it is one of the bugloss species often called “Tower of Jewels.

http://bardofelysays.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-pride-of-madeira.html