Introduction
Look around you. Apart from scattered cork oaks, we can see a lot of pines and other wide-leaved trees inside the stream. Not all the pines are the same. Just in the middle of the line, below us, we can see an isolated stone pine (Pinus Pinea). Before we come close to the main road you'll see how this is a dense plantation of this tree. We're coming underneath a small forest of Aleppo pines (Pinus Halepensis). The third group of pines we find on the other side of the stream, walking uphill, are maritime pines (Pinus Pinaster). The stone pine was sought-after for its fruit and wood. The Aleppo pine and maritime pine were also used for their wood which, being of low quality, is currently used to make biomass (chips for burning). In the stream, the tree that is re-sprouting with large, deciduous leaves is the tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus Altissima). An exotic invader that takes root energetically.