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



303 



c. Pine-Forests. Three species of the genus Plnus grow wild on Cyprus, and two of them, 

 viz. P. Ii(ilfjicnsi>; ami P. nigra (better known by the name of P. Laricio, which name, however, must 

 be given up according to the present rules of botanical nomenclature), belong to the most important 

 forest-trees of the island. Of the former species, "the Aleppo Pine" (P. halepenais), D. E. Hutchins says: 

 "This is the tree that to-day forms nine tenths of the timbei- forests of Cyprus" ')• And there can be 

 no doubt that he is I'ight in making this statement. 



Fiif. 128. Large Aleijpo Pine (Plnus halepemis), on the Road between the Villages Lagoudhera and Livad' 



Pines grow on Cyprus from the sea-level to very near the top of the highest mountain of the 

 island, Chionistra (ca. 1950 m. a. s.). We iind the pines growing singly or in scattered, small groups in the 

 most different parts of the island; only they seem to be not far from totally absent on the great plain-area, 

 which stretches across the island from east to west, from the bay of Famagusta to that of Morphu. Veritable 

 pine-forests are, however, pi-actically confined to the mountain-tracts of the island, above all to the southern 

 Troodos-range, where several rather considerable stretches are found, but also to the northern, where 

 P. halepensis not only in most places occupies a more or less prominent part in the cypress-forests, but 

 in several places also forms true pine-forests. The only place where natural pine-forests (formed by P. 

 halepensis) of mentionable dimensions descend as far as to the sea-level, is on the plain south of Cape 

 Korraakiti; this forest, however, I have not personally had the opportunity of seeing. 



1) Hutchins, Report on Cyprus Forestry, p. 17. 



