Woods

The 39% of Park territory is covered with woods. This is a good percentage, higher than European average and doomed to increase thanks to safeguard intervention of Park Authority. However, in the past, this forest heritage suffered serious losses replaced by pastures.
The forests in the Park are made by deciduous temperate wood most common in which are beech woods, the ornus-ostrya (Fraxinus Ornus-Ostrya Carpinifolia), oak woods and groves of Turkey Oak. Much more isolated are the Ilex groves growing on the warmest places where there is a particular microclimate. Besides, there can be found artificial formations of Black Pine, planted during the reforestation campaign after a new law in 1933. On the mountain belt between 800 and 1800 meters above sea level, the Beech tree prevails occupying the 69% of forest surface. Often beech woods are monophytous forests, that is grounds where only Beech Trees can grow and even the brushwood is poor of species. The blooming of these species happens before the Beech Tree produces its leaves just to exploit the sunlight coming to the ground. For this reason here is where most of geophytes grow. On the edges of beech woods and on lit up clearings grow laburna, peonies, lilies and various other heliophilous species, eager for sunlight.

The large woods of the Park host species with remarkable faunistic importance, some of which are priority targets according to EU directives, such as the Apennine Wolf and the Marsican Brown Bear, animals that choose the quietest places as haunts.

The oldest beech woods represent the ideal habitat for the mustelids, like the pine marten and the loir, for the felines, like the mountain cat, and for very unusual birds, like the red medium woodpecker and the white-backed woodpecker, both showing the high naturalistic value of these areas. Equally important are the micromammals, like the yellow-necked fieldmouse, the reddish fieldmouse and the very unusual Apennine shrew. They also like old woods. In particular environmental conditions such as gorges or rocky environments, the beech can be associated with the badger, an animal dating back to the Tertiary period and survived the Quaternary period glaciations. Pine forests too, though artificial woods, host several mammals that feed on pine come pips, like the squirrel, and various birds as well, such as woodpeckers, tits and crossbills.

In the past at the lowest altitudes the Pubescent Oak woods spread all along the hilly belt of Park territory. As centuries passed by, the man remarkably reduced their size, but today, due to the disertion of many areas, these forests are gaining again their own spaces, becoming fruitful forest environments, full of floristic components. Their very tangled brushwood, with plants of cytisus, blackthorn, lianas like ivy, greybeard, sarsaparilla (Smilax Aspera) and honeysuckle, marks them out. The acorns feed animals like wild boars. In these kind of environments we can also find other ungulates such as roes and deers which like to spend there the winter.