Читать книгу Trekking in the Apennines. The Grande Escursione Appenninica онлайн

20 страница из 33

Plants and flowers

The plant life in the Apennines is essentially Mediterranean in nature. Generally speaking the southern domains are characterised by Turkey oak and evergreen lentisks with spreads of scrubby maquis, gradually replaced by woodlands of beech, pine and chestnut the further north you go. Beech is predominant from the 900m mark and can be seen growing as high as 1700m. This is a guarantee of memorable colours both in spring with a delicate fresh lime green, then a continuum of vivid reds, oranges and yellows in autumn. A brilliant contrast is provided by the darker plantations of evergreens, silver fir and spruce. The most memorable forests are to be found in the Casentino (Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi), long exploited for shipbuilding: over the 16th to 19th centuries trunks with a minimum girth of 6m and a height of 28m were dragged by teams of oxen to the River Arno and floated via Florence to Pisa to become masts for the navy. In the 1300s timber was also used as scaffolding for Florence’s monumental duomo. Lower down, starting at 400m, are spreading chestnut woods, long cultivated as the mainstay of many an Apennine community for both timber and fruit, once dried and ground into nutritious flour.