Italy holds many treasures, often forgotten or ignored, one of these is undoubtedly the scrub: one of the most important Mediterranean ecosystems.
Let’s go exploring this wonder of nature, full of unparalleled colours, flavours and fragrances.

The Mediterranean scrub derives mostly from the ancient Mediterranean evergreen forest, which covered a large part of our peninsula. It is composed by shrubs with little but persistent leaves, between 50 cm and 4 m high. The scrub can be divided into high scrub and low scrub, according to the floristic composition and to its structural development. The high one is composed by species whose foliage can reach 4 meters high: holms, corks and ilatri. These are complemented by fragrant juniper and arbutus berries and mastic trees. The low scrub consists mainly of shrubs and bushes, like spurge, myrtle, broom, rock roses and rosemary.

This kind of vegetation is distributed mostly in hot and dry areas andgrows on shallow and rapidly draining soils: the preservation of the hydrologicalfunction of the maquis (i.e. Frenchname) is very important. The microenvironment of the scrub is a real biodiversity treasure: in fact, it contains a wide variety of animal species that find shelter and food in it.
So, if you are walking on rough trails of the CinqueTerre or if you are in Sardinia’s Giara di Gesturi,look around, try indeed to close your eyes and let yourself be carried by the unmistakable aromas of the maquis: a unique botanical heritage that has inspired poets, perfume makers and dreamers.