Côte d'Azur - Natural Area

With its Mediterranean climate, the Côte d'Azur has an extraordinarily rich flora. The original vegetation, including various species of pine (Aleppo pine, maritime pine, northern pitch pine) and deciduous trees (holm oak, cork oak, English oak, hornbeam, sweet chestnut), has suffered from human intervention and catastrophic forest fires and is much reduced from its former extent. The plants which are now characteristic of the landscape - the silver-green olive trees which cover the hills to a height of 500m/1,650ft, the orange and lemon plantations, the palms, vines, cypresses, pines, agaves, aloes, cacti, etc. have come from all over the world, some of them in Roman times.

Near the sea is found the maquis (macchia,