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Bosco della Favara and Bosco Granza Nature Reserve covers an area of some 7.413 acres, managed by the Regional State Forestry Company since 1997 (the year of its establishment).
This reserve encompasses the best-preserved woodlands in Sicily: the protected area lies, in fact, on an agricultural territory dominated by woods.

The wood contains uncontaminated areas, not easily accessible, such as Mount Soprana (3.697 ft above sea level), where there are cork and holm oak groves.
In the undergrowth and pre-forest sections, there is the typical Sicilian shrub vegetation, including blackthorn, hawthorn, crab apple trees, thorny asparagus, butcher’s broom, almond leaved pear, giant fennel and Cytisus triflorus, a plant similar to the Spanish broom.
The meadows are home to the spring sowbread, which blooms quite magnificently, and Romulea ramiflora subsp. ramiflora.

In huge stretches of this reserve, there are also evocative and centuries-old cork oaks, growing next to shrub species such as rock rose, blackthorn, thorny broom and weaver’s broom. Unlike Bosco Granza, Bosco della Favara is densely populated by downy oaks and hawthorn, blackthorn, crab apple trees, butcher’s broom, wild asparagus, almond leaved pear trees and Cytisus triflorus.

In the areas that surround this Reserve, there are Ferula communis L. subsp. communis, Ampelodesmos mauritanicus, and branched asphodel, while marsh reeds surround Boves lake.

Photo source: http://www.it9aak.it/FOTO/ATTIVAZIONI%20IN%20PORTATILE/FLORA%20E%20FAUNA/IFF-0526/galleria_foto.php?id=2

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)