马德拉岛的法纳尔森林，葡萄牙 The Fanal Forest on Madeira Island, Portugal (© Val Thoermer/Alamy)

马德拉岛的法纳尔森林，葡萄牙 The Fanal Forest on Madeira Island, Portugal (© Val Thoermer/Alamy)

These laurels are hardy

Go back 15 million years and you'll find most of Southern Europe looking like this fantasy forest: thick, scrubby underbrush canopied by wizened laurel trees. An epoch or two of human agricultural advances cleared those ancient woods, but patches persist on a few temperate Atlantic islands—Especially here on Madeira, a Portuguese-held island off northwest Africa.

The Fanal Forest, at almost 60 square miles, is the largest surviving laurel forest in the world. Ninety percent of the forest's growth remains uncut, and some of these long-in-the-root laurels have stood for 500 years.

这些桂冠很耐寒

追溯到1500万年前，你会发现欧洲南部的大部分地区都像是一片梦幻森林：茂密的灌木丛中覆盖着干枯的月桂树。人类农业的进步使这些古老的森林消失了一两个世纪，但在一些温带大西洋岛屿上，特别是在非洲西北部葡萄牙控制的马德拉岛上，仍然存在着一些斑块。

法纳尔森林面积近60平方英里，是世界上现存最大的月桂林。森林生长的百分之九十没有被砍伐，其中一些长根月桂已经存在了500年。