Garrigue
The vast majority of habitats near the sea today only consist of relatively low scrub, the garrigue, due to the erosion caused by deforestation.
Although the garrigue is often referred to as the meager form of the maquis, it is an independent shrubbery plant formation that occupies the lower coastal, often very rocky or extremely dry and sandy areas. The garrigue consists of a dwarf shrub community that grows only about one meter high.
The sometimes very dense but in some places also loose vegetation consists of different gorse (Genista salzmanni, Spartium junceum L, Calicotome villosa) and rockrose plants (Cistus monspeliensis, C. salviifolius, C. reticus L., C. albidus L., Halium haliumifolium, Tuberaria guttata) and milkweed plants (Euphorbia dendroides L., E. spinosa L., E. paralias LEcharacias L.) butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus L.) and all kinds of aromatic herbs such as, karst - Mountain mint (Satureja montana L.), dost (Origanum vulgare L.), lavender (Lavandula stoechas L.), laurel (Laurus nobilis L), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.), sage (Salvia officinalis) or thyme (Thymus capitatus ) and numerous bulbs and bulbs together. The garrigue is covered in many places by the large number of stinging bindweed (Smilax aspera L.) and the pointed-leaved asparagus (Asparagus acutifolius) and, not least because of the many thorny bushes, large parts of it are inaccessible to humans.
