NOTE about the Crop
Cork oak or Quercus
suber.
Mediterranean
origin,
possibly Tirreno sea, Terciary
(Oligoceno). Gil (1998) states that it develops
between latitudes 44° and 36°, mainly in the
south-west of Europe and the extreme north-west
of
Africa. The actual
area of cork oak in Portugal represents 33% of
the total cork oak area in the world 55% of the world
production (Ribeiro e
Tomé, 2002). No other species have been as protected
by law then this one:
legislation appeared in Portugal since 1209, (Gil,
1998). Some trees are now classified as "of public
interest"; several
of them have 6 to 7 m of diameter (BHD), one with age of at
least 500 years is
reported in Gil (1998). In Spain, France, Sicily, Algeria,....the areas
that
cork oak covers presently are only a very small part of
what existed before.
The first law protecting cork oak in Spain appeared during
the XVIII century; the area of cork oak at this time was much
bigger then in Portugal, but the
devastation was more intensive.
References:
Luís Gil, 1998. Cortiça,
Produção, Tecnologia e Aplicação.
INETI (Instituto Nacional de Engenharia e Tecnologia Industrial),
Lisboa, 384
pp.
Ribeiro,
F. and Tomé, M.,
2002. Cork weight prediction at tree level. Forest Ecology and Management, 171 (3): 231-241.