Piren Protected Area

Overview

Piren Protected Area is located 4 km northeast of Kosti. The stony sunballs preserve the most representative locality of formations of heather and other rare shrubs and grasses.

Erica (plant) is an evergreen shrub with needle-like leaves gathered in vertebrae of three. The flowers are small, arranged on thin flowering branches, forming short clustered inflorescences. It blooms in May-June. The fruit is a cracked box, composed of 4 - 8 parts. A relict species from the Tertiary period, an element of the Mediterranean flora. In Bulgaria it is distributed only in Strandzha, on dry stony slopes and near rare oak forests.