Two islands named for pines.

Why the Pitiusas

The two islands west of Menorca have a name that is neither Spanish nor Catalan: the Pitiusas. It comes from the Greek word for pine, used by sailors and geographers who saw from the sea the same thing a ferry passenger sees today, a low coast edged with dark green. The name describes trees rather than people, which is unusual in the Mediterranean and useful for anyone trying to read the place.

Strictly, the Pitiusas are Ibiza, Formentera and the islets around them: Es Vedrà and Es Vedranell off the south-west, Espalmador beside Formentera, and the small rocks off the north coast where lizards live. The sea between the two main islands is shallow and crossed quickly by ferry. Menorca, to the east, belongs to another group, the Gimnèsies, together with Mallorca. The word covers the water between the islands as much as the land, because that shallow sea is what let plants and animals move from one shore to the other.

The name has outlived the languages that made it. Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and Catalans all arrived, and each left walls, churches, words and crops, but the Greek description of a pine coast survived because it stayed true. The woods have been cut, grazed and burned more than once, and they are still there. That continuity is the point of the name, and the reason it still appears on maps and in the islands' own writing.

What grows under the pines

The pine that covers these coasts is the Aleppo pine, a tree built for salt, wind and thin soil. It grows almost to the waterline, behind beaches, on low cliffs and around the salt pans, and its roots hold the sand that winter storms move. The crown is flat and open, so light reaches the ground and the wood is never dark the way a northern forest is.

Under the pines the ground is low, tough scrub: wild olive, mastic, rosemary, cistus and juniper near the sea. Nothing here is tall, most of it is scented, and much of it flowers in spring before the summer drought. The pine woods of Ibiza are not separate from the coast; they are the coast, running from the dunes at Ses Salines round to the cliffs at Cala d'Hort and the north.

• Aleppo pineThe dominant tree, tolerant of salt spray, wind and months without rain.
• JuniperLow and wind-shaped, common on rocky ground near the sea where it holds the soil.
• UnderstoreyWild olive, mastic, rosemary and cistus, flowering in spring before the dry season.
• Edge of the woodThe trees run down to the shoreline, so a short walk covers wood, rock and water.

The lizard found nowhere else

The Pitiusan wall lizard, Podarcis pityusensis, lives on Ibiza, on Formentera and on the islets around them, and nowhere else in the world. It is brown, quick and unusually approachable, because it evolved on small islands without the mammals that would hunt it on a mainland. It suns itself on stones and walls, vanishes into a crack when a shadow falls, and is the animal a walker is most likely to notice.

Each islet tends to carry its own form, darker or paler, larger or smaller, and biologists treat the separated populations as distinct. That makes the small rocks off the Ibizan coast more interesting than they look from a boat: they are a set of natural experiments running in parallel. The lizards eat insects and small fruits and move seeds about, so the scrub and the pine woods depend on them more than their size suggests.

• EndemicFound only on Ibiza, Formentera and the islets between and around them.
• Islet formsSeparated populations differ in size and colour, and are treated as distinct.
• Seeds and insectsThe lizard eats insects and fruit, and moves seeds through the scrub.
• Hands offDo not pick one up, and never move one from one islet to another.

The other forest, under water

The pines stop at the shoreline and a second forest begins. Posidonia oceanica is a flowering plant, not seaweed, and it forms meadows that run from the shallows to about 30 or 40 metres down. The leaves are long, flat and green, they wash up in brown banks along the beaches in autumn, and those banks protect the sand through the winter storms. Water above a healthy meadow is clear, because the plant holds the sediment down.

The meadows between Ibiza and Formentera are part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing, together with Dalt Vila, the Phoenician settlement of Sa Caleta and the necropolis of Puig des Molins. Anchoring over them is regulated by a Balearic decree, and mooring buoys are laid in some bays in summer so that chains do not drag through the plant. The clear water, the white sand and the fishing all depend on the meadow staying where it is.

In autumn the sea gives the meadow back. Long brown leaves pile up along the shoreline and are usually left where they fall, because the banks protect the beach and feed the dunes behind it. Clearing them away, which is done on some heavily used coasts, costs the beach more than it gains. The natural park explains the process at its information points, and the banks are easiest to read on a windy day in October.

The pines end at the shore, and a second forest begins where the sand does.

Wood, charcoal and grazing

A pine wood looks wild, but most of the Ibizan coast has been worked. Mediterranean pine woods have been cut for timber, burned for charcoal and grazed by goats for as long as people have lived beside them, and these are no exception. The flat crowns along the paths often show where wood was taken rather than how old a tree is, and the open ground between trunks is usually the work of animals.

What changed in the twentieth century was that the work stopped and the coast filled with people who wanted it for other reasons. When grazing ended, the scrub grew denser and fire became the force that shapes the woods. Aleppo pine survives fire better than most of the scrub around it, seeding into the burned ground, which is one reason the island still looks green from the sea even where it has burned.

Walking the pine coast

The easiest place to see the pine coast is the south, where the woods run into the dunes of Ses Salines and the salt pans lie behind them. Tracks between the dunes and the pans pass juniper, pine and open water in a short walk. Cala d'Hort and the cliffs below Sa Talaia give the same trees on harder ground, with Es Vedrà offshore and steep paths down to the water.

In the north the pine covers steeper land above Cala Sant Vicent and Portinatx, and the paths between the coves cross it. Sa Talaia, the highest point on the island at about 475 m, is wooded for most of the climb. Paths are marked but not always shaded, water is scarce on the way, and the middle of a summer day is the wrong time to start. Go early.

• Ses SalinesPine, juniper, dunes and salt pans on flat ground, easy to combine in one walk.
• Cala d'HortWooded cliffs with Es Vedrà in view and steep paths down to the cove.
• Sa TalaiaThe highest point on Ibiza, wooded for most of the climb.
• North coastPines above Cala Sant Vicent and Portinatx, on steeper ground with fewer paths.

Fire risk and island rules

The pine woods burn. Summer brings heat, dry scrub and the tramuntana wind, and a cigarette end or a small fire can start something that runs for days. The island council restricts access to forest tracks and closes some paths when the risk is high, and the decision changes with the wind. Ask at the natural park office or check with the Consell d'Eivissa before a country walk in July or August.

The quieter rules matter too. Picking plants, taking rocks and catching lizards is not allowed in the natural parks, and fires and camping are banned outside the places set aside for them. Driving off the tarmac damages thin soil and the roots beneath it, and on the coast it can crush the dunes. None of this is onerous, and all of it is why the island still looks like a pine island.

Restrictions are announced locally and changed often, so the useful habit is to ask on the day rather than to plan a summer walk weeks ahead. The Consell d'Eivissa, the natural park office and the signs at the main parking areas carry the current position. A closed track is not an inconvenience invented for visitors: it usually means a fire has started somewhere, or that the wind has turned.

Leaving the woods as they are

The Pitiusan wall lizard shows why small habits matter. It lives on islets where one introduced cat, rat or snake can end a population, and a visitor who carries one home, or moves one between islets, does damage that cannot be undone. Look, photograph, keep a step of distance, and leave the stones where they lie, since the lizard uses them for shelter and for heat.

The same approach works for the woods. Stay on the path where there is one, take litter off the beach including the small pieces, light nothing, and take no plants, seeds, sand or stones home. In a place named for its trees, the least a visitor can do is leave the trees, and everything under them, where they were found. That is also what keeps the name accurate.