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Apennine Deciduous Montane Forests
The Apennine deciduous montane forests are a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion in the Apennine Mountains of Italy. The development of these forests is ensured by the high rainfall in the Apennines (from 1000 mm in the southern mountains to 2500 mm in the north), combined with a temperate-cool climate. Because of climate change, the presence of silver fir (''Abies alba''), although still widespread, has been dramatically reduced in favour of beech. Flora The ecoregion has two major vegetation zones, montane forests and mountain meadows. The beech forests are characterized by European beech ''Fagus sylvatica''. Beech often grows with deciduous oaks (''Quercus'' spp.) maples (''Acer pseudoplatanus'', ''Acer opalus'' ssp. ''obtusatum'', and '' A. lobelii''), ''Sorbus aria, S. aucuparia, S. torminalis, Ulmus glabra, Tilia platyphyllos, Populus tremula, Ilex aquifolium'', and the evergreen conifer yew (''Taxus baccata'')."Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palearctic Realm
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Mediterranean Basin; North Africa; North Arabia; Western, Central and East Asia. The Palaearctic realm also has numerous rivers and lakes, forming several freshwater ecoregions. Both the eastern and westernmost extremes of the Paleartic span into the Western Hemisphere, including Cape Dezhnyov in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug to the east and Iceland to the west. The term was first used in the 19th century, and is still in use as the basis for zoogeographic classification. History In an 1858 paper for the ''Proceedings of the Linnean Society'', British zoologist Philip Sclater first identified six terrestrial zoogeographic realms of the world: Palaearctic, Aethiopian/ Afrotropic, Indian/ Indom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorbus Aucuparia
''Sorbus aucuparia'', commonly called rowan (, also ) and mountain-ash, is a species of deciduous tree or shrub in the rose family. The tree has a slender trunk with smooth bark, a loose and roundish crown, and its leaves are pinnate in pairs of leaflets on a central vein with a terminal leaflet. It blossoms from May to June in dense corymbs of small yellowish white flowers and develops small red pomes as fruit that ripen from August to October and are eaten by many bird species. It is a highly variable species, and botanists have used different Circumscription (taxonomy), definitions of the species to include or exclude trees native to certain areas. A recent definition includes trees native to most of Europe and parts of Asia, as well as northern Africa. The range extends from Madeira, the British Isles and Iceland to Russia and northern China. Unlike many plants with similar distributions, it is not native to Japan. The plant is frost hardy and colonizes disrupted and inacces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaccinium Vitis-idaea
''Vaccinium vitis-idaea'' is a small evergreen shrub in the heath family, Ericaceae. It is known colloquially as the lingonberry, partridgeberry, foxberry, mountain cranberry, or cowberry. It is native to boreal forest and Arctic tundra throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Commercially cultivated in the United States Pacific Northwest and the Netherlands, the edible berries are also picked in the wild and used in various dishes, especially in Nordic cuisine. Description ''Vaccinium vitis-idaea'' spreads by underground stems to form dense clonal colonies. Slender and brittle roots grow from the underground stems. The stems are rounded in cross-section and grow from in height. Leaves grow alternately and are oval, long, with a slightly wavy margin, and sometimes with a notched tip. The flowers are bell-shaped, white to pale pink, long. ''V. vitis-idaea'' begins to produce flowers from five to ten years of age. They are pollinated by multiple insect species, including '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi
''Arctostaphylos uva-ursi'' is a plant species of the genus ''Arctostaphylos'' widely distributed across circumboreal regions of the subarctic Northern Hemisphere. Kinnikinnick (from the Unami language for "smoking mixture") is a common name in Canada and the United States. Growing up to in height, the leaves are evergreen. The flowers are white to pink and the fruit is a red berry. One of several related species referred to as bearberry, its specific epithet ''uva-ursi'' means "grape of the bear" in Latin, similar to the meaning of the generic epithet ''Arctostaphylos'' (Greek for "bear grapes"). Description ''Arctostaphylos uva-ursi'' is a small procumbent woody groundcover shrub growing to high. Wild stands of the species can be dense, with heights rarely taller than . Erect branching twigs emerge from long flexible prostrate stems, which are produced by single roots. The trailing stems will layer, sending out small roots periodically. The finely textured velvety branches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorbus Chamaemespilus
''Chamaemespilus'' is a genus of shrubs in the family Rosaceae. It is monotypic, being represented by the single species ''Chamaemespilus alpina'', commonly known as false medlar or dwarf whitebeam. It is native to the mountains of central and southern Europe, from the Pyrenees east through the Alps to the Carpathians and the Balkans, growing at elevations of up to 2500 m.Blamey, M. & Grey-Wilson, C. (1989). ''Flora of Britain and Northern Europe''. Description ''Chamaemespilus alpina'' is a deciduous shrub growing to 2–3 m tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, oval-elliptic, 3–7 cm long, with an acute apex and a serrated margin; they are green on both sides, without the white felting found on most whitebeams. The flowers are pink, with five forward-pointing petals 5–7 mm long; they are produced in corymbs 3–4 cm diameter. The fruit is an oval red pome 10–13 mm diameter.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins . Taxonomy ''Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juniperus Communis
''Juniperus communis'', the common juniper, is a species of small tree or shrub in the cypress family Cupressaceae. An evergreen conifer, it has the largest geographical range of any woody plant, with a circumpolar distribution throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere. Description ''Juniperus communis'' is highly variable in form, ranging from —rarely —tall to a low, often prostrate spreading shrub in exposed locations. It has needle-like leaves in whorls of three; the leaves are green, with a single white stomatal band on the inner surface. It never attains the scale-like adult foliage of other members of the genus. It is dioecious, with male and female cones on separate plants so requiring wind pollination to transfer pollen from male to female cones. Male trees or shrubs naturally live longer than female trees or shrubs; a male tree or shrub can live more than 2000 years.Lena K. Ward, The Conservation of Juniper: Longevity and Old Age, Journal of Applied Ecology, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Sylvestris
''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US), Baltic pine, or European red pine is a species of tree in the pine family Pinaceae that is native plant, native to Eurasia. It can readily be identified by its combination of fairly short, blue-green leaves and orange-red bark. Description ''Pinus sylvestris'' is an evergreen coniferous tree growing up to in height and in trunk diameter when mature, exceptionally over tall and in trunk diameter on very productive sites. The tallest on record is a tree over 210 years old growing in Estonia which stands at . The lifespan is normally 150–300 years, with the oldest recorded specimens in Lapland (Finland), Lapland, Northern Finland over 760 years. The Bark (botany), bark is thick, flaky and orange-red when young to scaly and gray-brown in maturity, sometimes retaining the former on the upper portion. The habit of the mature tree is distinctive due to its long, bare and straight trunk topped by a rounded or flat- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picea Abies
''Picea abies'', the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern Europe, Northern, Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the largest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very closely related to the Siberian spruce (''Picea obovata''), which replaces it east of the Ural Mountains, and with which it hybridizes freely. The Norway spruce has a wide distribution for it being planted for its wood, and is the species used as the main Christmas tree in several countries around the world. It was the first gymnosperm to have its genome sequenced. The Latin binomial nomenclature, specific epithet ''abies'' means "like ''Abies'', Fir tree". Description Norway spruce is a large, fast-growing evergreen coniferous tree growing tall and with a trunk diameter of 1 to 1.5 m. It can grow fast when young, up to 1 m per year for the first 25 years under good conditions, but becomes slower once over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinus Nigra
''Pinus nigra'', the Austrian pine or black pine, is a moderately variable species of pine, occurring across Southern Europe from the Iberian Peninsula and Lower Austria to the eastern Mediterranean, on the Anatolian peninsula of Turkey, Corsica and Cyprus, as well as Crimea and in the high mountains of Northwest Africa. Description ''Pinus nigra'' is a large coniferous evergreen tree, growing to high at maturity and spreading to wide. The Bark (botany), bark is gray to yellow-brown, and is widely split by flaking fissures into scaly plates, becoming increasingly fissured with age. The leaves ('needles') are thinner and more flexible in western populations. The ovulate and pollen cones appear from May to June. The mature seed cones are (rarely to 11 cm) long, with rounded scales; they ripen from green to pale gray-buff or yellow-buff in September to November, about 18 months after pollination. The seeds are dark gray, long, with a yellow-buff wing long; they are wind-d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxus Baccata
''Taxus baccata'' is a species of evergreen tree in the family (botany), family Taxaceae, native to Western Europe, Central Europe and Southern Europe, as well as Northwest Africa, and parts of Southwest Asia.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins . It is the tree originally known as yew, though with other related trees becoming known, it may be referred to as common yew, European yew, or in North America English yew. It is a woodland tree in its native range, and is also grown as an ornamental tree, hedge or topiary. The plant is poisonous, with toxins that can be absorbed through inhalation, ingestion, and transpiration through the skin. Consuming any part of the tree, excluding the aril, can be deadly and the consumption of even a small amount of the foliage can result in death. Taxonomy and naming The word ''yew'' is from Old English ''īw, ēow'', ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ''*h₁eyHw-''. Possibly entered Proto-Germanic language, Germanic la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ilex Aquifolium
''Ilex aquifolium'', the holly, common holly, English holly, European holly, or occasionally Christmas holly, is a species of flowering plant in the family Aquifoliaceae, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia.Flora Europaea''Ilex aquifolium''/ref>Med-Checklist''Ilex aquifolium''/ref>Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .Flora of NW Europe''Ilex aquifolium'' It is regarded as the type species of the genus '' Ilex'', which by association is also called "holly". It is an evergreen tree or shrub found, for example, in shady areas of forests of oak and in beech hedges. In the British Isles it is one of very few native hardwood evergreen trees. It has a great capacity to adapt to different conditions and is a pioneer species that repopulates the margins of forests or clearcuts. ''I. aquifolium'' can exceed 10 m in height, but is often found at much smaller heights, typically tall and broad, with a straight trunk and pyr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Populus Tremula
''Populus tremula'' (commonly called aspen, common aspen, Eurasian aspen, European aspen, or quaking aspen) is a species of poplar native to cool temperate regions of the Old World. Description It is a substantial deciduous tree growing to tall by broad, with a trunk attaining over in diameter. The bark is pale greenish-grey and smooth on young trees with dark grey diamond-shaped lenticels, becoming dark grey and fissured on older trees. The adult leaves, produced on branches of mature trees, are nearly round, slightly wider than long, diameter, with a coarsely toothed margin and a laterally flattened petiole long. The flat petiole allows them to tremble in even slight breezes, and is the source of its scientific name, as well as one of its vernacular names "langues de femmes" attributed to Gerard's 17th-century ''Herball''. The leaves on seedlings and fast-growing stems of suckers (root sprouts) are of a different shape, heart-shaped to nearly triangular. They are al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
