Native Mediterranean Cistus species for urban green areas

The landscaping and gardening with native Mediterranean ornamentalspecies of wild flora are a very interesting possibility to have plants largely resistantto environmental stress, quite frequent in the urban area. Cistus plants are evergreenwoody shrubs and their blooms are profuse and attractive. They are natives of landssurrounding the Mediterranean Sea and five species are present in Sicily. Apreliminary problem to improve plant utilization in urban green areas is linked tothe individuation of the better nursery cultivation regimes. In this view on differentCistus species trials were carried out to individuate the suitable propagationmodalities. In these species the heat generated by fire is a key germination stimulus.Also for this reason, in relation to untreated control, 7 different high temperaturepre-treatments (from 70 to 130°C) for different period (from 1 to 10 minutes) wereanalysed in four Cistus species (C. creticus, C. crispus, C. monspeliensis,C. salviifolius) in relation to two sowing strategies (soon after the seeds collected andafter 6 months at 5°C to simulate the effect of winter season). The high temperaturepre-treatment can improve the germination; the storage at 5°C to simulate thewinter season effects did not modify the germination process. In any case the resultsshowed a species-dependent response. Better results were obtained with C. creticus,while low percentage was achieved by C. crispus and C. monspeliensis.