KARABURUN   

Geography

How to get there?

History and Mythology

Fauna

Plants and medicinal herbs

Photo Gallery

One also finds many healing plants which are still used by the villagers such as spurge, pennyroyal, common poppy, perforate St-John’s-wort, thyme, caper, silifa, Aaron’s rod, sea squill, sage, wild lavender etc.Olives, narcissus, hyacinths, artichokes, mandarine oranges and lemons are part of the crops the villagers earn their living with. In the higher parts of the peninsula pine forests are dominating.

The Karaburun Peninsula has a typical Mediterranean overgrowth. But the peninsula also offers a couple of only is this region growing special products such as the “Hurma”- olive (an olive which through a microclimate effect ripens directly on the tree and need no further treatment before consumption), the narcissus flower and the artichoke. In the hills and in the valleys one finds many healing plants, the villagers still use to prevent or cure various illnesses. The different types of thyme and sage, wild lavender and hundreds of wild flowers turn the Karaburun Peninsula into a huge natural garden.

The overgrowth of the Karaburun Peninsula exist mostly of dense Mediterranean shrub with the exception of some locally growing bigger trees and bushes. The peninsula also has a pine tree forest (27 000 hectares). The following are typical for the area: strawberry tree, wild olive tree, sandal tree, turpentine tree, kermes oak, Persian lilac, maple-tree, mastic tree and the omnipresent rockrose.

One also finds many healing plants (about 47 different herbs) which are still used by the villagers such as spurge, pennyroyal, common poppy, perforate St-John’s-wort, thyme, caper, silifa, Aaron’s rod, sea squill, sage, wild lavender etc.

The Karaburun Peninsula, once known for its many olive groves and vineyards, has only few vineyards left nowadays. The main reasons for this are the emigration of work force, economical set back, uncured grape diseases and the ageing of the population.  However, olives are still one of the main products on the peninsula, collected from about 470,750 olive trees growing on 2,560 hectares. During the biannual production season, some 3,500 tons of olives are harvested. An important amount of olives are not collected because of difficult accessibility of the groves or because the owning farmers are too old to harvest the olives. This leads to important production losses. Today only 60 hectares of stoneless grapes and 10 hectares of grapes with stones are produced.

At present, the most important products of the Karaburun Peninsula are narcissuses, hyacinths, citrus fruits and artichoke. Narcissuses and hyacinths are grown on 156.3 decameters with a total production of 22,000 flowers. Artichokes are grown on 140 hectares with an annual production of about 6,450,000. Citrus fruits such as lemon, mandarin orange and oranges are growing on 90 hectares. The total annual production amounts 1,060 tons.