Sui Limiti Altimetrici Dei Consorzi Rupestri Di Leccio in Garfagnana

Summary One of the most characteristic species of the present Mediterranean vegetation, the holm-oak, still presents in the Appennines, after the alternate glacial periods, relict stations, separated and disjointed, strictly bound to the rocky places. The Author takes the examination of the altimetrical limits of the holm-oak in Garfagnana (Tuscany), in the valleys of Turrite Secca and Fegana, as a starting point to take into consideration the value and the floristic-oecological aspects of these rocky relicts. After a climatic and geomorphologic classification of the examined places, the distribution of the holm-oak in the aforesaid valleys is minutely described. The historical examination shows a derivation of the present plant-communities, rocky and relict, from the dispersion of a presumable anathermic mountain forest, referable to the period of the Quercetum mixtum, rather than to the ancient tertiary, thermophilous and orophilous, Mediterranean forest. The permanence of the holm-oak in the submontane and mountain stations is strictly bound to their peculiar oecology and its specific temperament. The rocky stations, at least those examined in Garfagnana, are remarkably arid and thermically continental, especially those exposed to the south and south-west. Their aridity, however, helps to lessen the dangers of the frost. The holm-oak can live there in virtue of its tolerance and biological plasticity. To the south it reaches the most elevated heights owing to the protection from cold winds and owing to its greater thermic availability. A peculiar attention is given to the dynamics, in time and space, of the floral-physiognomical groups: dynamics which has its impulse in the unceasing instability of the rocky micro-places. Some botanic observation, made in different floral districts, in different conditions of positions, altitude and nature of the substratum, aim at representing the floral aspects of the examined Quercus Ilex-stations. The flora is constituted with entities fit (preadapted) for the rocky places and with species supplied with remarkable qualities of adaptation. Through the comparisons of the biological spectra, it appears the great fitness of the Chamephytes to the harsh rocky places. Among the few Mediterranean species able to follow the holm-oak in the rocky localization it is worth mentioning, above all, the Juniperus phoenicea L., species typically of the littoral, never noticed in Tuscany at such elevated heights as those which have been noticed, as it appears in this work, in the Apuane Alps (till 1200 metres).