Page 4 - Badalamenti_alii_2013

508 E. BADALAMENTI, D. CUSIMANO, T. LA MANTIA & S. PASTA

sual alien in central and southern Italy (Marche, Latium, Campania and Sar-
dinia). Finally, in a botany forum M. azedarach recently figures as naturalized
(http://www.actaplantarum.org/ipfi/floraz_comp_map_dist.php?s=8591&
m=20) also in Basilicata and Tuscany.

MELIA AZEDARACH IN SICILY: PAST INTRODUCTION, RECENT SPREAD AND INVASION
FORECASTS

As concerns M. azedarach in Sicily, PITRÈ (1889) calls it “Pacenza, arvu-
lu di pacenza” and writes “Simbolo dell’infedeltà coniugale femminile. Un
marito becco volontario è chiamato pacinziusu ….” (= Patience, tree of
patience, … Symbol of womanly infidelity. A man who accepts to have been
betrayed by his wife is also called patient…”). Apart from these picturesque
details, the origin of the vernacular name still remains a mystery, also con-
sidering that Sicilians still use it referring to many other exotic or ruderal
plants such as Chenopodium botrys L., Rumex spp., Salix spp., Ailanthus
altissima (Mill.) Swingle, etc. (TROPEA, 1990). Due to its fast growth rate and
the good quality of its wood, during XX century M. azedarach was consid-
ered one of the most promising trees to be cultivated in Sicily in order to
improve national cellulose production (PALAZZO, 1956). At Favignana
(Egadi Islands, W Sicily) it was planted in order to use its wood as raw mate-
rial for ship construction.
Despite its introduction in Palermo Botanical Garden dates back at least
to the second half of XVIII century (UCRIA, 1789), the first signs of naturali-
zation of the species in Sicily were recorded only around 1959, when DI MAR-
TINO & PERRONE (1962) listed it among the epiphytes growing in the city of
Palermo. Subsequently, the species was considered as naturalized at regional
level, even if confined to urban and suburban habitats (CELESTI-GRAPOW et
al., 2010). Although M. azedarach is widely used as an ornamental species
along the roadsides, the public parks and the private gardens of the cities and
the towns of the main island, like San Vito Lo Capo (BERNHARDT & NAUMER,
1987), Palermo (PINTAGRO, 1999), and almost all the circum-Sicilian islands,
so far it proved to be naturalized only at Pantelleria (DOMINA & MAZZOLA,
2008). On the other hand, up to now we prevalently observed few self-sown
young individuals growing near the parent plants. Such a trend suggests that,
at least so far, the main strategy of seed dispersal has been barochory instead
of zoochory.
However, the recent colonization of semi-natural open environments
suggests the invasive potentialities of the species (Tab. 1). For instance, a
regeneration nucleus of about 20 young individuals located at Carini per-