Cork oak

This oak’s bark is cork – Algeria has some of the largest cork forests in the world, covering the humid mountains of Kabylia.

An evergreen oak with leathery, toothed leaves and thick, springy, deeply fissured bark. The cork is stripped every 9–12 years without harming the tree, which keeps regrowing it throughout a life that can last 200–250 years. It grows on acidic, sandy or schist soils in the more humid coastal areas of the western Mediterranean. Cork is used for wine stoppers, insulation and flooring, and the thick bark protects the tree from fire, so it recovers quickly after a blaze.

Significance in the country

After Portugal and Spain, Algeria has the third-largest area of cork oak forest in the world, and cork harvesting is a traditional occupation in Kabylia and around El Kala. Summer wildfires are increasingly destroying these forests.

Where it grows

In the humid coastal belt of north-eastern Algeria – from Kabylia through Jijel and Skikda to the area around El Kala on the Tunisian border; smaller forests also grow in the Tlemcen mountains in the west.

More: Wikipedia (en) Wikipedia (pl)