Flora of Lefka Ori

Identify plants species

Despite its popular name (Madares=the bare mountains), Lefka Ori manage to maintain worth-mentioning wooded areas in the medium and low altitudes.

The main forest biotopes of the area are the mixed cypress forests with Kermes oaks and Cretan maples and the Turkish pine (Pinus brutia) forests. The pine forests spread mainly on the southern slopes of the mountain range and along the coast. Cypress forests (Cupressus sempervirens) cover somewhat higher altitude zone than pine forests and show decreasing density as elevating in altitude.

On the northern slopes of the mountain and around the plateau of Omalos, the participation of the Zelkova abelicea, the only endemic tree of Crete, in the forest thickets is significant, while on the southern slopes we will also find thickets with carob trees (Ceratonia siliqua).

Lefka Ori are among the top 3 areas of Greece in terms of floral richness, speaking not that much in quantitative terms (the number of species is estimated at around 950), but mainly qualitatively: the number of about 25 narrow endemic species and subspecies, occurring exclusively in Lefka Ori, is extremely impressive and not found in any other mountainous complex of Greece. Proportionally, the Cretan endemics of the area reach the particularly high number of 110 species and subspecies.

Photos and descriptions of most interesting species of the flora of Lefka Ori are included in the application Lefka Ori topoguide, available for Android devices, as well as for iOS iOS devices (iPhone και iPad). The application guides the user to locate the POI with accuracy.