University plants holm oaks on campus

A few weeks ago I noticed University workers taking measurements around the large car park by the Birkirkara bypass. I wondered what it was all about. The next day I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the car park had been surrounded by a line of newly planted young holm oaks.

The holm oak (Quercus ilex, M. Balluta) is, it might be said, the ancient custodian of the Maltese forest. Indeed most of what is still left of our ancient forest cover is dominated by the holm oak which today grows in five localities that bear its name.

By planting the holm oaks the University has given the best possible example to those who intend planting trees in the Maltese Islands. All too often people point out the negative, it is time the European Maltese turn a new leaf and think green and positive.

Readers might be interested to know that up to 1988 only one holm oak grew at Tal-Qroqq at the place known as Is-Siberja. It was to celebrate Arbor Day in 1989 that a group of us students planted six holm oaks, kindly donated by the Department of Agriculture, near the old entrance near the Araar trees. This was to be followed by a second and third planting in the following years.

Meanwhile Wied Ghollieqa became a nature reserve and many holm oaks were planted in it by Arbor and later Nature Trust. On campus itself, the herbarium curator saw to it that more holm oaks were planted in the area south of the canteen.

Today the original oaks planted in 1989 bear good seed (acorns) that are being used to grow new oaks for several afforestation projects. One hopes that many more oaks will be planted in this country in the years to come.