Concept
The stone pine, botanical name Pinus pinea, also known as the Italian stone pine, Mediterranean stone pine, umbrella pine and parasol pine, is a tree from the pine family (Pinaceae). The tree is native to the Mediterranean region, occurring in Southern Europe and the Levant. The species was introduced into North Africa millennia ago, and is also naturalized in the Canary Islands, South Africa and New South Wales. Stone pines have been used and cultivated for their edible pine nuts since prehistoric times. They are widespread in horticultural cultivation as ornamental trees, planted in gardens and parks around the world. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Pinus pinea is a diagnostic species of the vegetation class Pinetea halepensis. The prehistoric range of Pinus pinea included North Africa in the Sahara Desert and Maghreb regions during a more humid climate period, in present-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Its contemporary natural range is in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome ecoregions and countries, including the following: Southern Europe The Iberian conifer forests ecoregion of the Iberian Peninsula in Spain and Portugal; the Italian sclerophyllous and semideciduous forests ecoregion in France and Italy; the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests ecoregion of southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia; the Illyrian deciduous forests of the eastern coast of the Ionian and Adriatic Seas in Croatia and Albania; the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex ecoregion on the Crimea Peninsula in Ukraine and Krasnodar Krai in Russia; and the Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests ecoregion of the southern Balkan Peninsula in Greece. In many parts of northern Italy, large parks with pine trees were laid out by the sea. Examples are the Pineta of Jesolo and Barcola, the Urban Beach of Trieste. In Greece, although the species is not widely distributed, an extensive stone pine forest exists in western Peloponnese at Strofylia on the peninsula separating the Kalogria Lagoon from the Mediterranean Sea.
