Shurbs of Argentea

Holly
The Holly is a spontaneous species of centre-western Europe, with an areal that comprises the Atlantic and Mediterranean regions, until the Asia Minor.
The Holly prefers the oceanic climates, with not very marked thermal excursions, good rainfall and moderated summery drought.
You can meet it in the humid hardwood forests until the mountain plain, preferably on sour soils. It’s very diffused as ornamental plant, for the splendid, deep green foliage, that creates a decorative contrast with the red fruits and for its tolerance towards the polluted atmosphere of the cities. As evergreen it is particularly appreciated in northern Europe, where it grows until Scandinavia.
Usually in cultivation circle, you can proceed to graft branches of feminine plants onto male individuals, for the production of the ornamental fruits. This plant has a very slow increase and seems can reach also the 300 years. It produces hard, compact, light grey wood, than with the time browns. This wood is fit for being dyed and it is used for cabinet work.

Strawberry Tree
The Strawberry tree is original of the Mediterranean basin and Atlantic coast until the Ireland. It belongs to the Family of Ericaceae. It’s one of the Mediterranean species better adapted to fires. In fact on sour soils the repeated fire favours the strawberry tree, able to emit quickly from earth new “turioni” after the passage of the fire, imposing itself on the other species. It’s an evergreen little tree (5-6 m, until 10 m), with often shrubby carriage. The log presents a thin, fine and regularly scaled rind, with long and tightened vertical plates of tawny-reddish colour. The persistent, alternate, tough, with short petiole leaves, have a elliptic blade. The flowers are in branched racemes of white cream or rosy colour, with a lanceolate corolla with 5 short teeth; the flower-cup has triangular teeth. It blooms from October to December and it bears fruit in the following autumn. The fruit is a globular berry of 1-2 cm, dark red, with the surface covered of granulation; succulent pulp with many seeds.

Juniper
The Juniper is a plant, diffused in arid environments of the sea, thanks to its resistance to the saltiness and the winds, until the 1500 meters.
It is a pioneer plant. For pioneer plant we mean the first organisms that settle in a territory.
When you meet in the forest some already dead specimens and encircled from ilex and strawberry trees, you must know that long, secular life of that specimen allowed the creation of the necessary substrate to the development of the following more exigent flora.
The foliage is expanded and irregular, the log is twisted. It produces a fragrant wood, of long duration, used once for beams in the rooms. The flowering happens from January to April and the fruits ripen after a year.
The berries contain a balsamic oil that has stimulating disinfectants and digestive properties.

Elder
The elder is a branched, deciduous shrub or a small tree of 5-8 m; it is constituted from an erected log that often branches, starting from the base. The bark is green in the young plants, but with the ageing cracks and assumes a grey -brownish coloration. Characteristics are the numerous lenticels on the surface of the bark. The branches are supplied with an abundant, tender, white and spongy central medulla.
The leaves of the elder are imparipinnate and 10-30 cm long, formed from 5-7 elliptic opposite leaflets, with acuminated apex, serrate edge and an unpleasant smell if you rub them. They have the characteristic of being caducous and joined to the branches through a long petiole; the colour is dark green in the upper part, while it’s clearer on the lower part.
The flowers are of milk- white colour, intensely sweet -smelling and collected in large corymbs with a diameter of 10-20 cm. The corolla is formed from five rounded petals disposed to ray; around the pistil we find five stamen dephased of 45° regarding the petals.
These flowers are hermaphrodite and bloom from April to June. The fruits of the elder are drupe of black-violaceous colour.
When they ripen contain three oval and tawny seeds, while the axis of the infructescence are of purple red colour.
To ripening the fruits are pendents. The drupe are very juicy; the juice has a dark red colour, because contains anthocyans, called sambucina and crisantemina. Once the juice was used as colouring substance for the leather. The fruits are rich of sugars, potassium and vitamin C.
The seeds are rich of fat oils. The dispersion of the fruits happens thanks to the birds, above all blackbirds, averts and blackcaps, but also the mammals help the dissemination.