Pizza, Pasta, and Plants – Botanizing in Italy and Corsica (Part 9)

Tuesday Sept 8 – Corsican Adventure

Since our time on Corsica was limited, we chose to take the cross-island highway from the northeast part of the island where we landed, to the town of Ajaccio, in the far southwestern corner. Driving directly there would have taken us only 2.5 hours, so this allowed plenty of time for botanizing stops.

As we rose from coastal elevations, our first stop was about 1.5 hours from Livorno in the Natural area, Vallei de Restonica.  Here, at 1500’ elevation, we made our first sighting of the Corsican endemic, Helleborus argutifolius.  At this site were also three ferns, Asplenium adiantum-nigrum,  more Asplenium onopteris, and huge patches of royal fern, Osmunda regalis, along the massive rocky stream at the bottom of the steep hill.  On the dry, sunny side of the road were numerous patches of Spanish Lavender, Lavandula stoechas.

We continued up the same narrow, winding mountain, until we reached 3000’ elevation. Because of my acrophobia, and the lack of any road guardrails, we chose not to drive higher.  Here, on the incredibly rocky steep hillsides were  more ferns, most of which we’d seen before. The Asplenium onopteris here, has the most cut foliage of any we’d seen previously.  The area was also filled with heathers, some often growing alongside the dormant Asphodelus ramosus.  Euphorbia characias, which we grow at JLBG, was also here, but certainly not plentiful. Among the dry, sunbaked rocks was also quite a bit of Teucrium marum, aka: kitty crack. To my nose, it smelled a bit different to the material we sell.  The only one of several Corsican saxifrages we found, is what I think is probably Saxifraga pedemontana subsp. cervicornis.  Here, plants of Quercus ilex, which we’d seen earlier in Italy, looked simply stunning among the large boulders.

From here, we headed back down the mountain, making our next stop at 2890’, when we spotted a different species of Asphodelus, with much smaller seed pods.  The dormant foliage was just starting to resprout for fall.  Thanks to Zac’s great eyes, we also found the white-flowered amaryllid, Pancratium Illyricum, growing among the Asphodelus. If we’d been a month later, this spring-flowering species would most likely be littering the hills with foliage.  The dominant tree species here is the giant Corsican pine, Pinus nigra var. laricio, with it’s beautiful bark.

I had begun to tire from overheating, which I attributed to my advancing age, until we hopped back in the rental car and saw that the outside temperature had reached 42 degrees C (107 degrees F), and that’s not counting the added humidity.

Our final stop in the Vallie de Restonica was at 1680’, where we found the giant fennel, Ferula communis with ripe seed. Also, here, we found the dryland juniper, Juniperus oxycedrus in a reproductive state. From here, we headed back to the main cross island highway, the S20, and proceeded further south.  We soon spotted an interesting site, and pulled off the highway, to find a virtual forest of Ruscus aculeatus. Most of the plants here were in the 4-5’ range, with a few in fruit. 

Shortly after this site, we took another side road back into the higher mountains. The habit was very similar to the Vallie de Restonica, but without the multitude of hikers and cyclists.  Our final stop for day, at 2040’, yielded a new fern, that we assume to be Dryopteris affinis, and our first Corsican sighting of Selaginella denticulata. The soft shield fern, Polystichum setiferum also grows here, and this form should have no problem tolerating heat and humidity. We also found splendid specimens of the little-grown Daphne gnidium, in both flower and fruit.  The tree that had me fascinated throughout the trip was the ash, Fraxinus ornus, which in Italy had green foliage, but on Corsica, all the plants had splendidly silver foliage. This absolutely needs to be introduced into cultivation.

As we headed south toward our hotel, we pulled off the road, after spotting what appeared to be an ancient ruin, atop an isolated mountain peak.  It turned out to be an abandoned 18^th century prison, Fort de Pasciola, run by one of Napoleon’s henchmen, Joseph Morand, to keep political insurgents locked away. It is now a public visitation site, complete with hiking trails.

Part 10 coming tomorrow!