Ponta de São Lourenço (Portuguese for the "Point of Saint Lawrence") is the easternmost point of the island of Madeira. It is inside the town of

Caniçal Caniçal () is a civil parish in the municipality of Machico in the Portuguese island of Madeira. The population in 2011 was 3,924, in an area of 11.85 km2. Equidistant from Funchal and Santana (20 km), the community is connected to the ...

and forms a part of the municipality of Machico. Its terrain are made up of rocks and herbaceous vegetation. Since 1982, the headland is a nature reserve, where it has the conservation of its endemic plants including ''

Matthiola maderensis ''Matthiola maderensis'' is a flowering plant species of the family Brassicaceae. It is endemic to the Madeira Archipelago.Echium nervosum'', and '' Andryala glandulosa'', and it has fauna, including birds, insects, and molluscs. One of them is ''

Monachus monachus The Mediterranean monk seal (''Monachus monachus'') is a monk seal belonging to the family Phocidae. , it is estimated that fewer than 700 individuals survive in three or four isolated subpopulations in the Mediterranean, (especially) in the Ae ...

'', a seal. Marine fauna are in the waters surrounding the headland. Pointe de SanLourenzo - Baixas do Guincho

Northeast of the islet is

Porto Santo Porto Santo Island () is a Portuguese island northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean; it is the northernmost and easternmost island of the archipelago of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Europe and Africa. The muni ...

, and southeast is

Bugio Bugio Island ( pt, Ilha do Bugio) — is one of the three islands of the Portuguese Desertas Islands archipelago, a small chain of islands in the Madeira Islands Archipelago of Macaronesia. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean off the western coa ...

and the Deserted Islands. Nearby are a few islets with the easternmost being

Ilhéu do Farol Ilhéu do Farol (also: ''Ilhéu da Ponta de São Lourenço'')
MadeiraWeb ...

(Farol Islet), where its nearby lighthouse is located. The headland's highest point is Pico do Furado. There is a path which takes about an hour to walk from the headland entrance. To the west is the New Port of Madeira. The headland's geology consists of pyroclastic rocks as well as basalt dykes (dikes) and some coasts being eroded. The group dates back to the Late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, about 100,000 years ago."A Geological tour of the Archipelago of Madeira", Maria Luisa Ribeiro Miguel, Magalhães Ramalho, Direcção Regional do Comércio, Indústria e Energia Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, p 37 and 75

Important Bird Area

Ponta de São Lourenço, along with the islets of Ilhéuda Cevada and Ilhéu do Farol at the eastern end, have been recognised as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

for their

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

, including the largest

Caspian gull The Caspian gull (''Larus cachinnans'') is a large gull and a member of the herring and lesser black-backed gull complex. The scientific name is from Latin. ''Larus'' appears to have referred to a gull or other large seabird, and ''cachinnans'' ...

colony in Madeira.

References

External links

* {{authority control Geography of Madeira Machico Natura 2000 in Portugal Important Bird Areas of Madeira