Article

The role of Ilex aquifolium in the Mediterranean temperate vegetation is analysed with reference to the plant communities occurring in Sicily. In particular, the geobotanical literature following the reporting of the first extraordinary population of this species on the Madonie Mountains, in Sicily, is examined. From there the proposal to recognize not only for Sicily but also for the south of the Italian peninsula and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, a belt of azonal vegetation, with a Colchic imprint, finding floristic, ecological and phytogeographic affinities with aspects of vegetation widely represented in Colchis, a Caucasian region spared from the devastating effects of the glacial phenomenon. In Sicily, the interest and the debate that arose stimulated further investigations, including phytosociological ones, in the same mountain system and subsequently in the rest of the island, in particular in the bordering territory of Nebrodi Mountains. The authors remind the plant communities of the island in which Ilex aquifolium still plays an appreciable role. In particular, in the Madonie and Nebrodi systems there are wide areas covered by mixed woods physiognomized by I. aquifolium (evergreen laurophyll element) and by deciduous oaks such as Quercus. petraea subsp. austrotyrrhenica and Q. cerris respectively. The authors, in preliminary presenting the problem for the entire Mediterranean region, despite the loss of interest, return to the subject for the purpose of the recovery, reconstitution and enhancement of the ancient Sicilian forest landscape, still represented within the two natural parks, among the most representative of the island.