Every month, Dwejra Tower in Gozo features a plant of the month which can be found in bloom on the island at that time of the year.
This initiate was first started several years ago with the aim of making visitors and local residents more aware of Gozo’s wild plants, and to fully showcase the wide range of fascinating and beautiful flora to be found here on the island.
Dwejra Tower has said that for the month of March, the plant being featured is the Branched Asphodel or Common Asphodel – Asphodelus ramosus (Latin) Known as ‘Berwieq’ in Maltese.
Asphodels are members of the Lily family (Liliaceae). They are strong growing, and drought tolerant medium to tall perennial plants, that can reach up to a metre in height.
The leaves are strap-like, flat and grey green on the underside. The distinctive star-like flowers are white, sometimes pale pink in colour and have a distinctive pinkish-brown mid-vein. They are usually borne on sturdy, branched and leafless flower spikes.
The flower spikes also look attractive for months, both for their imposing shape and because the many small white flowers, star-shaped and individually up to 4cm (about 1.57 in) across, open in succession from the bottom to the top of the spike.
They favour garrigue, rocky or slopes, but plants are also found growing in olive groves, on wasteland and field margins. They are very common and can be seen in large numbers (colonies) on Gozo and other parts of the Maltese islands. Flowering takes place during early Spring. The plants are unpalatable to grazing animals.
In Greek mythology, the asphodel was associated with death and the underworld. In ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’, asphodel was an ingredient in a potion called the Draught of Living Death.
Photos and plant information provided by Dwejra Tower