In Italy, the stone pine has been an aesthetic landscape element since the Italian Renaissance garden period. The tree is among the symbols of Rome, where many historic Roman roads, such as the Via Appia, are embellished with lines of stone pines. Stone pines were planted on the hills of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul for ornamental purposes during the Ottoman period. In the 1700s, "P. pinea" began being introduced as an ornamental tree to other Mediterranean climate regions of the world, and is now often found in gardens and parks in South Africa, California, and Australia. It has naturalized beyond cities in South Africa to the extent that it is listed as an invasive species there. It is also planted in western Europe up to southern Scotland, and on the East Coast of the United States up to New Jersey.