The Mediterranean biome is a quintessential temperate community. In addition to characterizing the area around the Mediterranean Sea, it’s also found in the Cape region, in California, in the southwestern part of Australia, and in Chile.

Plants have adapted incredibly well to the two fundamental characteristics of this biome: the presence of the sea, and the stress caused by prolonged drought and high temperatures in summer.

So we find leaves that are hairy or hard and leathery, becoming thorns. All of which are strategies to reduce loss of water vapour and possible damage caused by ultraviolet rays.

If we think of the Mediterranean coastlines, we definitely conjure up a landscape of figs, vines, citrus and olive trees. The olive tree is the oldest plant cultivated by humans in this region. It became a domestic tree more than 5,000 years ago and contributed to the development of the city-state of Athens. Olive oil is a precious food that the ancient Greeks exported across the Mediterranean Sea and to do so, they developed ships and amphorae for transport, a currency for trade, ports, roads. In other words, an entire civilization.

Another practical Mediterranean plant is the cork oak. The invention of sealing wine bottles with a cork is attributed to the French monk Dom Perignon, who lived between the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Cork bark is very thick: an evolutionary adaptation, so the tree can defend itself, isolating it from the fires that are frequent in these areas. To use the cork, pieces of bark are broken off the living plant, which leaves scars but not permanent damage. The first layer removed is called male or virgin cork and is less prized than inner, softer layers, called female cork. A decade may pass from one harvest to another. Let’s say that you have to be patient to make cork!