Aleppo pine or pinus halepensis is the most spread tree in Dalmatia.

It is native to all Mediterranean region and mostly grows on low altitudes, up to 200 m but in Spain or Crete can be found on higher grounds. It is coniferous tree with needle - like leaves. It's really crowded here with those pines. I can see them everywhere, every day I see hundreds of them.

The bark of this tree varies from dark orange to dark brown.

Sometimes it can look grey or even black, but that is not very often. We have another pine in Dalmatia, it's called black pine and it has dark grey to black bark. But I will write about that pine in Dalmatian wild plants part 2. Down on the photo you can see bark of Aleppo pine.

The cones of Aleppo pine are narrow conic when they are closed.

It takes few years for a cone to open. Young cones are green or orange and they can be long 5 - 10 cm. In the first stage of the opening, the cones are orange, but later they become brown. There are seeds in these cones and the seeds have a wing which makes easier to wind to take it on the ground.

OPENED CONES |CLOSED CONES
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YOUNG CONE

Aleppo pine doesn't need too much water or fertile soil to grow.

It is like a parasite and it doesn't matter about the ground or soil, it can grow between two rocks. If you don't visit some some of your real-estates for longer time, you could find the situation as on the photo down.

Down on the photo you can see very unusual situation - a pine grows from a fine!

The tree is Aleppo pine, but the young with greener leaves is black pine. Probably birds brought the seed here and it ended in the whole in bark. There it found some food and started to grow.

Aleppo pine can give large amounts of resin which was used as glue in history.

The wood was used for fortification in the age of Roman Empire.

These trees give really nice shade in the summer, but they are very dry and dangerous!

Do not approach to this tree with burning cigarette and don't leave any broken glass around them! They are key factor of spreading uncontrolled fire and burn fast with very high flame.