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Ocotea foetens
Tilo (Ocotea foetens) is a large evergreen tree of the laurel family, native to the laurel forests of Madeira and the Canary Islands, that can reach 30 to 40 m. It is rarely grown as an ornamental, so there is little cultivation guidance, and it is best suited to mild, humid climates.
Ocotea foetens, commonly called til or stinkwood is a species of tree in the family Lauraceae. It is evergreen and grows up to 40 m tall. It is a common constituent of the laurisilva forests of Madeira and the Canary Islands. Leaf fossils of this species are known from the Mio-Pleistocene of Madeira Island.
The species was first described as Laurus foetens by William Aiton in 1789. In 1870 Henri Ernest Baillon placed the species in genus Ocotea as O. foetens.
Ocotea foetens is endemic to Madeira and the Canary Islands, appearing in laurel forest habitat, generally between 400 and 1400 m altitude. In the Canary Islands it is not present on Lanzarote or Fuerteventura. In the archipelago of Madeira it is absent from Porto Santo. In the Azores Islands it is an introduced species. It is the only Paleoendemic Ocotea species in the wetter relict forest areas of Macaronesia. Its berries are consumed mostly by the endemic Madeiran pigeon Columba trocaz.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ocotea foetens by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
