INTRODUCTION 5 



This is one of the comparatively few species apart from weeds and 

 sandy seashore plants common in the British Isles and also occur- 

 ring among the wild vegetation of the Riviera. In both regions it is 

 almost though not quite confined to siliceous soils. 



The maquis are in fact rather closely allied to our English heaths. 

 The "landes" of south-western France are intermediate between 

 the two, possessing many of the same species as the Mediterranean 

 maquis, side by side with others which occur in Brittany and in the 

 British Isles. The leading difference between maquis and heath is 

 the formation of a thin layer of surface peat on the soil of the heath. 

 This peat formation is owing to the cool moist " oceanic " climate in 

 which heaths are developed, and is seen in a much more extreme 

 form in the case of the moors of the western and northern portions 

 of the British Isles, where the peat is much deeper than on heaths. 

 In the warm, dry climate of the Mediterranean peat formation cannot 

 occur to any great extent, because there is not enough water to form 

 peat from the dead plant remains. 



Many other species of the maquis are described in this book. 

 Among the most widespread and abundant are the cistuses with 

 their beautiful white flowers, opening in April, and superficially 

 somewhat like the white wild roses of English woods and thickets ; the 

 shrubs Rhamnus Alaternus and Phillyrea media, the pinnate-leaved 

 lentisc (Pistacia Lentiscus\ the two characteristic climbers of the maquis 

 the leathery leaved honeysuckle (Lonicera implexd] and the liliaceous 

 Smilax aspera, with small greenish flowers, and clusters of red berries 

 in winter all five typical and abundant Mediterranean species with 

 close-textured evergreen leaves : the spiny yellow- flowered Calycotome, 

 species of Genista and Cytisus, and the broom-like " switch-plant " 

 Spartium junce um, all members of the Papilionaceae. None of these 

 last is evergreen the leaves are put out in the spring like those of 

 an English shrub, and are thin and soft in texture, but Spartium and 

 Calycotome have green stems which do the work of leaves during the 

 winter. 



ALEPPO PINE- WOODS. 



While the maritime pine is found chiefly on siliceous soil the 

 Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) forms the characteristic pinewoods of 

 the limestones, though it is not confined to these soils. Though 

 closely allied to the maritime pine the Aleppo pine is easily dis- 

 tinguishable and is usually a smaller tree with much shorter and 

 weaker needles of a lighter green, and much smaller cones with less 

 prominent bosses on the cone scales, which are of a duller brown and 

 not " lacquered ". 



The shrubby undergrowth of the Aleppo pine- woods on limestone 

 contains many of the same shrubs that are found in the maritime 

 pine- woods and maquis. Cork-oak, arbutus, tree-heath and ling are, 

 however, absent, while rosemary (Rosmarinus offidnalis), the cistus 



