MEDITERRANEAN MAQUIS

The maquis is one of the major natural ecosystems that characterize the entire Mediterranean region, including the Italian peninsula.

It is found along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, which determines a climate with hot and rather dry summers, mild, wet and rainy winters and modest daily and annual temperature ranges. Under these conditions, shrubs are in vegetative stasis in the summer and are more vigorous in the winter or spring. As the plants have evolved, they have adopted a series of changes that have enabled them to overcome the problem of evapotranspiration of water from the leaves due to severe drought, such as the presence of hard leaves to limit transpiration and of narrow leaves to reduce the surface area and thus the loss of water, etc. Other common characteristics of this type of flora are the limited growth in height due to the effect of sea winds and resistance to brackish winds and the predominance of evergreens and sclerophylls.

There are two types of maquis: high and low. The high maquis includes plants with an almost arboreal appearance and crowns that reach a height of 4 metres or more, such as holm oak, oak and cork trees, but also strawberry trees, juniper and mastic trees. The low maquis on the other hand is mainly made up of species with a shrub-like habit and foliage that reaches 1-2 metres in height, such as broom, cistus and rosemary, which, in the most degraded and poor soils, form formations known as 'garigues'.

In this flowerbed some species belonging to the Mediterranean garrigue have been used: Cistus sp., Helichrysum italicum, Lavandula angustifolia, Rosmarinus officinalis, Santolina sp., Thymus vulgaris.