He had begun his performance a few yards away, fully concealed amid the squat Valonia oaks and barbed thickets of nettles, and although I knew Chaldoupis was there, crouching in the woods, his song felt like an emanation from deep within the earth, a conjuring.

A new town then began to spring up, settlers being attracted by the prospect of opening up a trade in the products of a vast forest of valonia oaks which grew near.

The valonia trade has also steadily developed, and is supplemented by the export of timber, tobacco and almonds.

Valonia, va-lō′ni-a, n. the large acorn-cup of a species of oak which grows round the Levant, used in tanning.

On the west coast the ilex, plane, oak, valonia oak, and pine predominate.