CALABRIAN PINE

CALABRIAN PINE

LATIN NAME: PINUS BRUTIA

HOMELAND: EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

KING OF THE TREES

Calabrian Pine, whose homeland is the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, is also referred to as Turkish Pine in the world, due to the fact that the most intense growing region is the Mediterranean Region of Turkey.

Calabrian Pine, which gets its scarlet description from the red spots in the bark crevices, has been both the raw material of traditional folk remedies with its resin and one of the important motifs of tales in the folklore of the regions where it is the dominant tree species in Turkey. Especially in fairy tales, it appears as the tree where children lost in the forests take shelter.

The pine tree species, together with the birch tree, also called betula, are accepted by geologists as one of the 2 tree species that survived the last ice age.

For this reason, it has been accepted as a symbol of immortality and rebirth in all historical processes since the primitive periods of all the regions where they grew up in the world and has an important place in both religious, folkloric and economic matters.

The pine tree, which appears as a pine cone in the hands of the Babylonian reliefs about God Tammuz, who is responsible for the blooming of plants, is oldest form in terms of visual representation. The pine tree has preserved its existence in similar meanings from Central Asian, Hindu, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Hellenic, Roman mythologies to the teachings of Abrahamic religions. has come so far.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the pine tree is the king of trees, with its place in Christmas, which is celebrated by the most people in the world through religious participation by Christians and sympathetic participation by many non-Christians.

The sympathetic involvement of non-Christian people may be due to the fact that the pine tree was blessed with similar traditions by their ancestors in their history, perhaps prior to their current culture. As one of the most interesting examples of this, we can see the Nardugan Festival in Central Asia, where the Pine Tree is decorated and the New Year is welcomed, which coincides with Christmas even though they are Muslims today.