OPTIMA Newsletter 38

stici, storici e gestionali. – Corpo Forestale
dello Stato, Ufficio territoriale per
la biodiversità di Lucca, 2006. 250
pages, photographs, maps, graphs and
tables, mostly in colour, folded colour
map sheet in pouch; laminated cover.
Horrid indeed – or better: terrific! The
Orrido di Botri nature reserve in the upper
catchment basin of the Fegana River (before
it assumes that name and is still named Rio
Pelago), in the Apennines of Lucca Province
in N Tuscany, has a size of less than 300 ha,
but is crossed by one of the wildest, deepest,
narrowest gorge of peninsular Italy, comparable
in its savage beauty to its better known
counterparts in the Alps. The site is so impervious
that you need special permit to
enter it, which is only possible in the summer
months, for well trained mountaineers
wearing a hardhat – and of course, for a fee.
Yet a century ago it was classified as pasture
land, being all but deforested, and much of
its natural wildlife had been killed off.
Since 1934, the area has been placed
under the care of the state forestry service,
which has taken care of its reforestation and
protection. Photographs taken before 1934,
compared to those of today, show astounding
changes. The formerly bare slopes are
now wooded with hop hornbeam (Ostrya
carpinifolia) below and beech in their upper
part, apart from the sheer cliffs. Wildlife and
wildfowl are steadily increasing, with several
recent additions such as the wolf,
groundhog, and deer following the now fully
established wild boar to keep company to
the single surviving couple of golden eagles;
moufflon is expected next.
The zoological chapters of the book,
from which this information is taken, are followed
by three botanical ones, among which
that on the vascular flora, by Pier Virgilio
Arrigoni, Giulio Ferretti and Michele Padula,
is the largest and most complete. About 500
species are accounted for, with indication of
habitat, distribution and other (even descriptive)
data, and many are illustrated by good
Publications
colour photographs. They testify, not only to
the relative species richness of so tiny an
area, but also to the originality of its flora, as
many of the constituent species are rare,
several are Italian endemics or otherwise of
phytogeographical interest. The other, shorter
botanical chapters, also nicely illustrated,
refer to fungi (by Italo Franceschini) and
lichens (by Renato Benesperi).
W.G.
94. 93BFrancesco Maria RAIMONDO (ed.) –
Result of the third “Iter Mediterraneum”
in Sicily, May-June 1990. [Bocconea
(ISSN 1120-4060), 17.] – Herbarium
Mediterraneum Panormitanum,
Palermo, 2004 (ISBN 88-7915-019-7).
330 pages + one sheet of errata, 41
black-and-white figures, 2 colour plates,
3 tables; laminated cover.
Six “senior” and five “junior” participants,
not counting Franco Raimondo the
organiser and his local support team, took
part in the Third Iter Mediterraneum, in Sicily,
29 May to 19 June 1990. During those
three busy weeks they collected the impressive
number of 1535 different taxa of vascular
plants, and in addition 231 of bryophytes,
76 of macrofungi and 66 of lichens. Not
only were many of the collected species,
especially among the bryophytes, new for
the Island’s flora, there were also no less
than six still undescribed and unnamed taxa
of higher plants among them. Five are new
species of Centaurea (2), Dianthus, Hieracium
and Pyrus, each described in a short
paper of its own at the end of the volume;
the fifth, Cynara cardunculus var. zingaroensis,
is described but not validly named in
the body of the enumeration.
In his introduction, Raimondo somewhat
apologetically explains the reasons why
it took 14 years to publish the results of the
Sicilian Iter. Regrettable as the delay may
be, what counts in my opinion is that he has
finally succeeded. This is a fine book, important
as a source of floristic data and in-
2009 OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 (49)