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



305 



Already Tiieophrast mentions pines among- the chief forest trees of the island'), and there is surely 

 no doubt that the pine-forests have supplied the g-reator part of the wood-material which in the course of the 

 past centuries has been exported from Cyprus. As pointed out above, the pine-forests have formerly had a 

 considerably greater disti-ibution on the island than at present (compare p. 278 and 289, seq.). Definite traditions 

 stating that pine-forests have ancieutly occurred in places which are now destitute of wood, may not rarely 

 be heard. Thus the monks in the Convent of Khrysorogiatissa assert that the Aetokremnos, the mountain 

 on the slope of which their convent is 

 sited, anciently has been covered with 

 pine-forests. Now only scarce and scat- 

 tered remains are left, amongst others 

 some beautiful large pines in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of the convent. 



By far the greatest part of the 

 pine-forests consist of "the Aleppo 

 Pine" (P. halepensis). It is this tree 

 which covers the western slopes of the 

 Troodos-range with wide-spread conti- 

 nuous forests (" the Paphos Main Foi'est'" ), 

 and it also constitutes the chief part in 

 most of the other large forest-stretches, 

 which are found along- this mountain 

 range (compare the map. Fig. 116, p.290). 

 On Cyprus this is the only pine-species 

 Avhich descends to the sea-level, and in 

 mountain-tracts it mounts as far as 1400 

 m. a. s., in the least. Above this limit 

 it is replaced by "the Caramaniau Pine" 

 (P. nigra subsp. Pallasiann), which 



constitutes the forest in the highest central parts of the Troodos-range, in the environs of Chionistra and 

 the summer-quarters of the government. The thii-d pine-species growing wild on Cyprus, the stone-pine 

 (P. Plnea), has on this island a very limited distribution, as it is only noticed in some few places on 

 the southern slope of the Troodos-range. Everywhere it occurs sparingly, and in no instances it forms 

 any real forest. In greatest number it appears at the village of Moniatis, not far from Platraes. It grows 

 here together with P. halepensis in places where it cannot be supposed to have been planted, and there 

 is scarcely any reason for doubting that it is originally spontaneous. 



"The Aleppo Pine" is a tree very easily contented and in possession of a great power of resisting 

 drought and heat. It does not attain, however, its full development in the lowland-tracts, but only in 

 heights of from 800 to 1000 m. a. s., and higher. In the forests which it forms in this height above 

 sea-level, the Aleppo Pine is often seen to assume mighty dimensions; high, rank stems of considerable 

 thickness are seen everywhere in the forests, where they have not been felled down by man. From "the 

 Paphos Main Forest" Hutchins mentions a pine, which was 105 feet (= 31.9 m.) high, and which measured, 

 breasthigh, 4 feet 6 inches {= 1 37 m.) in diameter; in circumference it may be assumed to have measui-ed 

 ca. 4.4 m.'). At Exo Mylos in the same forest I observed a tree, measuring 3.77 m. in circumference, 

 and at a sheep-stable in the vicinity of the convent "Prophetos Elias", east of Makhaeras, a tree with a 

 stem-circumference of 3.2.5 m. was noticed; in the forests of this part of the island, which generally are 



Foscolo, ijhot. 



From the Pine-Forest on Troodos. Only Caramanian Pines 

 (P. nigra subsp. Pallasiana) are seen. 



') See OBERHnMMER, Die Insel Cypern, I, p. 254. 

 ^ Hutchins, Keport on Cyprus Forestry, p. 17. 



39 



