Flora

It assessed that flora in Salento includes about 1500 species. One of the peculiarities of flora in Salento is the fact that it includes numerous species of the oriental-Mediterranean area, absent in the rest of Italy and present rather in the Balkans ( this is due to the proximity of the two opposite Adriatic sides [between Capo d’Otranto and the Albanian coasts there are only 80 Km] and to the same ambient conditions).

As well as the secular olive trees that characterize the land, the vegetations is constituted also by the prickly pear, that grows spontaneously both in the internal area and in the coasts, the almond tree, that begins to bloom already towards the middle of  January. In spring, the earth under the olive trees, near the paths and the streets, in the slits of the dry laid walls, is covered in flowers and colour the landscape with a shade that goes from the yellow of sunflowers to the red of poppies.

In summer the red colour  joins the green of the Mediterranean scrub. Afterwards the multicoloured berries announce that autumn is just around the corner.

Among the species in common with the Balkans, the most majestic is certainly the “Vallonea Oak” (Quercus ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis), pesent in Italy, only in the southern Salento, near Tricase. Apart from the Vallonea Oak in Salento is also present a Palestine Oak (Quercus calliprinos) that creates woods of only oaks or mixed with live trees.

On the coast from Otranto to Leuca, characteristic species of rocky flora can be found, as the bluebottle of Leuca (Centaurea leucadea), the Aurina leucadea, the Dianthus japigycus, the Campanula versicolor, the Echinops spinosissimus and the Limonium japigycum, while on the dunes grows the  Prickly Juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus).

Very interesting is also the presence of many species of spontaneous orchids, as the Orchis laxiflora, the Ophrys apifera, the Ophrys candica, the Orchis palustris and the Serapias politisii that grow in the marshy areas or among the Mediterranean scrub.

 
Fauna

There are many species of birds to be found in Salento, as the crane, the Grey Heron, the Mallard, the Great Bittern, the European Roller, Red-crested Pochard, the Common Kestrel, but also a lot of reptile species as lizards and geckos, of mammals as hedgehogs, foxes and stone martens and of arthropods as Scorpions and tarantulas.

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