Flora

Sorrounded by myth and legend
SORROUNDED BY MYTH AND legend, the natural history of Etna has affected the scientific thought since the most remote history of men.
Adaptations to the environment
The Etna has to faces, two landscapes that could not be more contrasting. One is the happy one “campus aetneus” so exalted by the ancients for its extraordinary fecundity: “the branches are heavy with fruit” (Ovidio). The other side is the squalor of the “sciare”, of the deserts of the volcanic slag, the blackish lava flows, sometimes inaccessible to vegetation, scorching to the summer sun, places that seem to be condemned to desolation.
The plant landscape of the mediterranean baseline plan
On this vegetation plant, though we must recognise that the frequency of certain entities and plant morphology in some environments are obviously of related anthropogenic influence, we may recognise many aspects of vegetation and a rich floristic cortege.
The vegetation landscape of the supra-mediterranean and mountain-mediterranean
In the altitudinal range between 1.000m and 1500m, the vegetation, not any more of Mediterranean type, is characterised by significant Forestry. It is over here that the pine forests, larch pines and the birch betulleti prevail, together with the beech and the popular Poplar plantations.
The plant landscape and the altitudinal distribution
The distribution of the variety of species included in the Etna flora, suffers of the peculiarity of a differentiated and selective environment, due to the pedoclimatic conditions, to limit the presence of individual plants only to the occurrence of certain environmental factors (temperature, humidity, light, wind) and dependent variables from different altitude conditions.
The plant landscape of the high mediterranean plan
The characteristics of the substrate, the summer drought, low temperatures of the winter period render impossible the survival of the plants in the summit part of the volcano. Still, its colonisation, even if conditioned by the peculiar environmental conditions that manifest with particular selectivity at these altitudes, allows a major affirmation of the pioneer entities specialised to the survival in arid places.
Chestnut of the one hundred horses
The chestnut of the one hundred horses, located in the territory of Sant’Alfio, is one of the monumental trees most important and most beautiful in Italy due to its age and its size.