Remarks on the most Important Plant-Societies of the Island. 



243 



the gardens of the villages in the central mountain tracts of the island.— Pomegranate (Punka Gra- 

 natum) is commonly cultivated everywhere. 



In different places in the low country, above all in the neighbourhood of towns, comparatively 

 considerable plantations have been laid out after the English occupation in 1878. Mr. A. K. Bovill, 

 Principal Forest Officer of Cyprus, has been so kind as to give me the following informations: Theoldest 

 are the plantations near the residence of the High Commissioner outside Nikosia; the first trees were 

 planted here during the winter 1880 to 1881. The plantations round the walls of Nikosia date from 

 1881 and 1882. Wherever the ground is swampy they choose to plant Eucuhjpiu^. Until the'. English 



Pig. 87. Zizijphun Lotus on the Threshing-Place at Alethriko. 



occupation this tree may be said not to be known in the island, there being only two copies of it (one 

 near Nisou between Nikosia and Ijimassol, and the other near the convent of Kykko); but now it is seen in 

 many places in the low country. Experiments have been made with several different species, which are 

 still planted indiscriminately. E. resinifera. however, is the one that .gets best on. After i or 5 years 

 already the trees are 5 m. high on an average with trunks 20 to 25 cm. thick; then they may be cut down, 

 and after the same lapse of time new trunks equally big will have grown out of the stools. In a plantation 

 of Eiimhjptus near Limassol, 6 years old, most trunks were (in 1905) about .30 cm. in diametre. Of 

 the copies of E. resinifera that were planted outside Nikosia during the winter 1882 to 1883, the biggest 

 one is situated near the Famagusta-gate. Mr. Bovill measured it on the 27th of December 1902 and 

 found the girth of the trunk to be 3.32 m. just above the ground. I measured the same tree on the 

 1st of April 1905 and found the girth to be 3.46 m. in the same height; about 2 m. higher up the trunk 



