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In the Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia we can contemplate the beautiful and intense flowering of the almond trees of Horta de Sant Joan, in the Terra Alta region.
This time of year, even in winter although the weather is very spring-like at times, is ideal to contemplate the spectacle that this tree of the Rosaceae family offers us in the fields.
One of its varieties has been cultivated for millennia to use its seeds, almonds, as food and as raw material to obtain its oil.
The other, the bitter almond tree, produces seeds that cannot be consumed due to their content of amygdalin, a toxic substance.
Almond trees bloom much earlier than other fruit trees, which usually wait for the arrival of spring. Although this year we are also seeing how the flowering of the cherry and peach trees is progressing.
The flowering of almond trees generally occurs around the months of February and March, but it is increasingly observed that it occurs in mid or late January, as has also happened this year.
