--	Magredi Magredi are an element of landscape that characterizes the natural areas of the high plains of FRIULI .They are part of the impressive glacial phenomenons that tookplace in the last million years in our Alps and alpine foothills. At the end of each cold phase ,the abundant fluvial glacial waters descended towards the plains with extraordinary energy.They were fed by the melting enormous glacial caps during periods of temperature increases. Their ability of erosion was so strong as to allow the movement of large quantity of heavy, rocky and unrefined materials which were pulled away from the bottom of the steep slopes into the narrow alpine valleys causing them to deepen even more. These materials were left scattered and fanned out in shapes of cones at the bottom of the mountains. At the exit of the valleys,towards the plains where the floods lost most of the energy,permeabling mattresses of enormous strenght and thickness are made by rocky fragments shaped as bowls and gravel. They form an almost continuous stripe between the high and the low plains. The conoids of CELLINA-MEDUNA are the main example of this architecture formed by clusters of debris,that stretches on the communities of CORDENONS, S.QUIRINO, VIVARO and up to MANIAGO. It is so impressive to be visible on a national scale on the satellite photos of our peninsula as a large off white spot. MAGREDO means a poor land. Poor because it is formed by a cover of wild grasses and shrubs with few hydric needs fit to live in extremely saturable and dry soil. It is so eager for water that it is unable to hold and give back even a small portion of that generous precipitation to make " FRIULI " popular as the most rainy region of Italy. In the high part,this plain is so stingy of water,but gives back with large generosity,rivulets,streams and rivers hidden in green vegetation of the lower valley.In this area of spring waters,the layers of gravel beds leave their place to the clay. To give an image of a desolate landscape,we can use a sequence of harsh words as:poor,dry,rocky,bushes and weeds,but also as sweet,melancholy,immense and vast. Other effective words could be:sky,clouds,land,tranquility,open,space and wind. Humankind always discovers his real dimension in front of an impressive natural phenomenon.He realizes his limited knowledge as something that encircles and surrounds him. The Magredo compares with someone who simply tried to walk in solitude,but especially compared with whom,for centuries,consumed his existence on this barren land.As every other thing that belongs to experience,memory and culture of a nation,will change from real place to a memory from which their people will never be able to understand without losing part of their own identity. The tough woody grasses and shrubs attacked the rocky river beds with the same stubbornness as when the people of FRIULI plowed their dry land of the high plains, starting all over again and rolling up their sleeves after every disaster as earthquakes and floods. The grasses blocked the beds with tangled roots along the edges of the iverbed spared by the violence of the floods.The vegetation strengthened with the years and benefited from the reddish frail thickness of the land she helped develop with huge perseverance. The poor and humble look of these dry prairies cannot deceive,since it is here in these"Magredi" that we find a treasure of species in the highest of natural panorama of ITALY.Only this should be sufficient to justify the urgent intervention to guarantee the future of these precious barren lands and to change them into biogenetic reserves.Just as a bank where we can preserve this extraordinary inheritance of biodiversity that is ours. The whole history and culture of the people who lived in this land is tied to the nature of these rocky lands. Their homes were built with simple material gathered along the river reflecting almost a connection between the frugal, firm style of life of these people and the clean and essential shape of the rocks, of the river bed, they used for their construction. Grapes were grown in between the rocks, herds grazed, scented forage was gathered during the hay harvest months. The Magredi represent one of the last examples of a typical landscape of a steppe. It is so wide and unique at peninsular level and certainly the last one in Northern Italy. Some of the herbs are so rare and limited to certain areas that the disappearance of portions of the Magredi would cause their loss. The unusual bush of the Crambe tataria, shows itself here and there during the spring in between the nice and colorful blooms of Ginestrelle,Timo, the endemic Mattiola and numerous wild orchids of elaborate color and fanciful shapes. The Magredi of Pordenone are in Italy the only station of Crambe tataria, an original plant known for its looks, name and history. They say it was involuntarily imported around the year 1000, during the invasion of the Hungarians. They might have introduced it from the far away Hungarian puszta by seeds attached to their horses shoes. The Crambe tataria, when done blooming in the late Spring, dries up, her dry bushes roll away at the winds mercy and distribute all the seeds on the sunny prairie land. This happens also in the hungarian puszta and in the dry steppes of the Central America deserts where other herbs grow in the same way. With the same sense of freedom, the branches of Salici move into the wind. The golden sea of the Stipa pennata or Fairytale grass waves and large birds of prey fly in the sky. Poiane, Gheppi and Albanelle hunt numerous prey that they can easily spot in the large open spaces. Together with the eagles that descend from the near by mountains circling overhead in precise manner against the blue sky, they are the last guardians of the Magredi. Their high flight and their acute screams seem to be a dramatic warning towards the modern man and his eager civilization to defend this last natural stronghold that originally belonged to them. Stefano Fabian	FORUM of the ASSOCIATIONS for the Protection of the " MAGREDI of CELLINA " in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region - Italy   Cellina Canion   Cellina riverbed                 Spartium junceum     Crambe tataria   Serapias vomeracea    Daphne cneorum   Brassica glabrescens