Investigators surveyed 169 circular plots of 314 square meters each, recording every vascular plant species and its cover-abundance. Artificial habitats such as urban areas, planted forests and agricultural land were not included in the vegetation sampling. The flora of Syria and Lebanon served as the identification reference, while species nomenclature followed the International Plant Names Index.

The records included 24 taxa endemic to Mount Hermon and Mount Lebanon, two endemic to Mount Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and one endemic exclusively to Mount Hermon. Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae, Apiaceae and Lamiaceae together accounted for 56.7% of the identified taxa. The researchers combined the vegetation observations with climatic and terrain variables, using 1981–2010 average annual precipitation and mean annual temperature from CHELSA at 30-arcsecond resolution, alongside slope and aspect derived from one-arcsecond Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data.

Plant-community composition was analyzed with Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, unweighted pair-group clustering with arithmetic mean, and two-dimensional nonmetric multidimensional scaling. Diagnostic species were assessed using percentage frequency, the phi coefficient of association and Fisher’s exact test. Taxa with constancy of at least 25% and p ≤ 0.001 in at least one site group were treated as constant.

Ten groups emerged from the 169 plots: three in the oro-Mediterranean belt above 2,000 meters, three in the supra-Mediterranean belt between 1,000 and 1,600 meters, and four in the montane-Mediterranean belt between 1,600 and 2,000 meters. The three oro-Mediterranean groups consisted of hedgehog-heaths characterized by Astragalus echinus and Noaea mucronata, hedgehog-heaths characterized by Tanacetum densum and Astragalus cruentiflorus, and limestone-cliff vegetation marked by Rosularia sempervivum subsp. libanotica. The supra-Mediterranean groups comprised grasslands with Eryngium glomeratum, upper woodlands containing Quercus infectoria, Q. coccifera and thickets of Crataegus azarolus, and lower evergreen Q. coccifera woodlands.

The four montane-Mediterranean groups were scree deciduous woodlands of Prunus korshinskyi and Lonicera nummulariifolia, montane woodlands of deciduous P. korshinskyi and evergreen Q. coccifera, montane thickets of Astragalus gummifer, and deciduous woodlands of Quercus look and Acer monspessulanum subsp. microphyllum. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling broadly reproduced the cluster results, with a stress value of 0.1541. A one-way analysis of similarities found significant differences in plant-community composition among the groups, with R = 0.80 and p < 0.0001.

Elevation and mean annual temperature had the strongest associations with the ordination axes, with r² values of 0.889 and 0.858, respectively, both at p < 0.001. Slope was also significantly associated with the axes at r² = 0.227 and p < 0.001, as was northness at r² = 0.082 and p < 0.01. Annual precipitation and eastness were not significantly correlated with the ordination.

Each habitat had a distinctive plant assemblage. The hedgehog-heath characterized by A. echinus and N. mucronata occupied slopes and thalwegs with relatively deeper soil and contained 12 endemic taxa, the largest number recorded for any mapped habitat. The montane woodland of Q. look and A. monspessulanum subsp. microphyllum contained 10 endemic taxa, while the scree deciduous woodlands of P. korshinskyi and L. nummulariifolia contained six.

The study proposed five habitat subtypes for Lebanon’s national typology: the two oro-Mediterranean hedgehog-heath types, the oro-Mediterranean limestone-cliff community and two forms of montane deciduous woodland involving P. korshinskyi. Several limitations constrained complete sampling and classification. The remaining Juniperus excelsa population was located and mapped but could not be physically reached.

Closely related habitats with similar floras were represented by unified map polygons, while the composition-based analysis did not effectively distinguish degraded forms of supra-Mediterranean woodlands. The researchers also noted that grazing, wood exploitation, agriculture and fire have shaped the present vegetation, but the study did not quantify these historical effects. The findings provide a habitat-based inventory for a region whose flora remained relatively understudied.

The researchers proposed that the mapping could support management of the nature reserve, which encompasses the majority of the identified habitats. They also described the vulnerability of Q. look woodlands and J. excelsa woodlands in the context of past exploitation and identified a need for protective measures and restoration, while noting that such measures could also support pastoralists seeking shade during hot summer months.

Subject of Research: Field-based characterization and mapping of plant habitats on the western slopes of Mount Hermon in Lebanon

Article Title: Habitat characterization and mapping on the western slopes of Mount Hermon in Lebanon

Article References: El Zein, H., Chalak, L., Baydoun, S., Khater, C., Choueiter, D., & McKenna, M. (2024). Habitat characterization and mapping on the western slopes of Mount Hermon in Lebanon. Vegetation Classification and Survey, 5, 85-107. https://doi.org/10.3897/vcs.106377

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/VCS.106377

Keywords: Mount Hermon, Lebanon, habitat mapping, plant communities, vegetation, floristic diversity, endemic plants, Mediterranean ecosystems, biodiversity conservation, Habitat, characterization, mapping

These Red List assessments were based on compiled occurrence records, field observations, population estimates, information on ecology and reproduction, and geospatial calculations. The two Italian taxa were evaluated under criterion B using an extent of occurrence calculated with a minimum convex hull in QGIS 3.28.13 and an area of occupancy calculated with a fixed grid of 2 × 2 km cells. The two Uzbek taxa were evaluated with GeoCAT using the same grid dimensions.

For Alyssum wulfenianum subsp. wulfenianum, the Italian regional assessment estimated an extent of occurrence of 60.2 km² and an area of occupancy of 20 km². The regional population was estimated at about 3,600 mature individuals. This narrow endemic is restricted to the southeastern limestone Alps, principally around Cave del Predil and the Rio del Lago valley in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, with a smaller distribution across the border in Carinthia, Austria.

The subspecies is a perennial that grows on calcareous rocks, screes, debris, and gravel-sand riverbeds at approximately 600–900 m above sea level. It is described as a hyperaccumulator metallophyte associated with high concentrations of zinc and lead and is also reported to accumulate thallium. It occurs where natural contamination or mining has created metal-rich substrates and is considered a poor competitor on non-metalliferous soils. Subpopulations on the slopes of Mount Re were described as stable, whereas those in the Rio del Lago stream bed were highly fluctuating and in decline.

The assessment classified A. wulfenianum subsp. wulfenianum as Endangered under criteria B1ab(ii,iii,iv,v)+2ab(ii,iii,iv,v), reflecting no more than five locations and continuing declines in area of occupancy, habitat extent and quality, locations or subpopulations, and mature individuals. Potential future changes associated with mine remediation, hydrological regulation, gravel extraction, and phytoremediation were distinguished from the observed condition of the populations. Increased recreational use of the Cave del Predil geomineral park and resulting human trampling were also identified as threats. No information on extreme fluctuations was available for this assessment.

For Noccaea cepaeifolia, the Italian assessment estimated an extent of occurrence of 21.5 km² and an area of occupancy of 16 km². Its Italian population was described as a few thousand individuals, with additional small, scattered subpopulations. The narrow endemic occurs in the calcareous southeastern Alps, with its Italian range centered on Cave del Predil and a limited extension into Carinthia. Some subpopulations in former mining areas and on nearby slopes were considered stable, but reductions had been observed in lower-altitude populations along Rio del Lago.

N. cepaeifolia was also classified as Endangered in Italy under criteria B1ab(ii,iii,iv,v)+2ab(ii,iii,iv,v). As with A. wulfenianum subsp. wulfenianum, the assessment cited no more than five locations, continuing declines in geographic and demographic measures, potential habitat alteration from mining remediation and riverbed works, and trampling associated with recreation. The assessment did not report information on extreme fluctuations. Both Italian assessments noted that detailed reproductive information was unavailable, and the authors called for research and monitoring of reproductive biology, environmental influences on reproduction, population trends, and the effects of mining remediation and flooding.

The global assessment of Phlomis nubilans estimated 50,000–100,000 mature individuals from field studies conducted over the preceding 10 years, alongside 71 known occurrence records. Its calculated extent of occurrence was 4,381.61 km² and its area of occupancy was 172 km². The endemic perennial occurs in the Nuratau Mountains, where agricultural development, excessive grazing, geological exploration, mining, and quarrying were identified as pressures. Grazing was described as the main indirect threat because livestock trample young plants and contribute to soil erosion and habitat degradation, although livestock do not eat the species.

Although P. nubilans met the numerical area thresholds associated with criterion B for Endangered, the assessment cited more than 10 locations, more than 10,000 mature individuals, no severe fragmentation, and no known extreme fluctuations. It was therefore classified as Near Threatened. A species-distribution model projected a significant reduction in suitable range under the RCP8.5 scenario as aridification increased; this was a model-based projection rather than an observed loss of area. The demographic structure of the species was described as poorly studied, with available data regarded as contradictory.

Phlomoides anisochila was classified as Endangered globally under criteria B1bc(ii,iii,iv)+B2bc(ii,iii,iv)+C2ab. Field work documented about 1,000 individuals across 34 occurrence records, with small isolated groups commonly containing 10–30, 50–70, or occasionally 100–200 plants. Its extent of occurrence was 214.5 km² and its area of occupancy was 40 km². The assessment recorded extreme fluctuations in mature individuals and estimated fewer than 250 mature plants in the largest subpopulation, supporting the application of criterion C as well as criterion B. Grazing, geological exploration, avalanches, mudflows, and drought-related pressures were identified, while species-distribution modeling projected a reduction in suitable range under the RCP8.5 scenario as drought increased. The authors proposed expanded protection within Nuratau Nature Reserve, regulation of grazing, restrictions on mining and geological exploration, research and monitoring, cultivation methods, reintroduction, and seed banking for the two Uzbek taxa.

Subject of Research: Regional and global IUCN Red List assessments of four threatened plant taxa in Italy and Uzbekistan

Article Title: Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 18

Article References: Orsenigo, S., Beshko, N. Y., Casolo, V., Castello, M., Khabibullaev, B. S., Petrussa, E., Shomurodov, K. F., Uliana, L. R., & Fenu, G. (2025). Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 18. Italian Botanist, 19, 185-203. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.19.156865

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.19.156865

Keywords: IUCN Red List, plant conservation, Italy, Uzbekistan, metallophytes, Nuratau Mountains, Cave del Predil, endemic plants, habitat degradation, population monitoring, Global, Regional

The Cerbaie cover roughly 114 square kilometers across the territories of seven municipalities in the provinces of Florence, Pisa and Lucca. Geologically, they consist of Pliocene and Pleistocene sedimentary rocks and sediments that give rise to acidic, siliceous soils, an unusual substrate in a part of Tuscany where calcareous materials often dominate. The climate is temperate and distinctly continental, with mean annual precipitation between 950 and 1,100 millimeters concentrated in autumn and spring, and a degree of summer aridity that peaks in July. This combination of acidic soils, abundant streams and small valleys, known locally as vallini, and a temperate climate has created a mosaic of habitats in which mesophilous, hygrophilous and thermophilous species can grow within meters of one another, a juxtaposition that is rare in the lowland Mediterranean landscape.

Compiling the inventory required the researchers to reconcile a long and fragmented history of botanical exploration. The first records for the hills date back to the mid-nineteenth century with the pioneering work of Piero Caruel, followed by the substantial contributions of Sandri and Fantozzi in 1895 and the first dedicated floristic study by Giuseppina Di Moisè in 1959. The team extracted every occurrence record from these historical sources, cross-checked them against modern nomenclature using the Portal to the Flora of Italy, and supplemented the literature data with observations from the crowdsourced portal Wikiplantbase #Toscana and their own extensive field expeditions. To gauge whether the hills were truly exceptional, they applied a predictive framework based on species-area relationships adjusted by environmental modeling, which estimated an expected richness of 1,021 species and subspecies for an area of this size and character.

The observed count of 1,107 taxa exceeded that prediction by eight percent, a margin the authors interpret as evidence of genuinely high floristic richness compared with other Tuscan territories. Three families dominate the spectrum: the daisies of Asteraceae with 126 taxa, the legumes of Fabaceae with 112, and the grasses of Poaceae with 96, together accounting for roughly thirty percent of the flora. Sedges, too, are remarkably well represented with 53 taxa, reflecting the importance of wet habitats. Among genera, Trifolium leads with 35 species, followed by Carex with 20 and Lathyrus with 17. The life-form spectrum is dominated by hemicryptophytes at 35.2 percent and therophytes at 32.2 percent, with geophytes contributing another 15.1 percent, a profile typical of temperate rather than strictly Mediterranean floras.

Perhaps the most striking biogeographical signal comes from the chorological analysis. Despite the hills’ low elevation, fully 32.5 percent of the flora shows Eurosiberian affinities, with a further 25.5 percent transitional between Eurosiberian and Mediterranean regions, while purely Mediterranean elements make up only 15.4 percent. This marked northern signature mirrors the temperate, continental climate of the area and echoes the vegetation of the preapenninic acidophilous durmast oak woods that clothe much of the territory. Several species reinforce this pattern dramatically: the round-leaved sundew, Drosera rotundifolia, a carnivorous plant of acidic bogs, persists here at the southern edge of its European range, while species such as white birch, white hellebore and Asphodelus macrocarpus, which normally grow at considerably higher elevations, find refuge on these low acidic slopes.

The survey also delivered discoveries of direct taxonomic significance. Two taxa, the sedge Carex oedipostyla and Thalictrum simplex subsp. galioides, a meadow-rue, are recorded for the first time in Tuscany, and in both cases the Cerbaie currently represent their only known regional locality. A further 330 taxa are new records for the study area itself. At the other end of the ledger, the team confirmed 344 previously reported taxa during field surveys, judged 47 unconfirmed but reliable, classified 19 as doubtfully present, and identified three as wrongly reported in the literature. Three species, Lysimachia tenella, Menyanthes trifoliata and Potentilla alba, were not rediscovered and may now be locally extinct, a quiet warning about the vulnerability of the wetland habitats they once occupied.

Endemism adds another layer of value. Thirteen Italian endemic taxa occur in the hills, including the Etruscan star-of-Bethlehem Ornithogalum etruscum in both its subspecies, several narrowly distributed orchids of the genus Ophrys, and the endemic subspecies Polygala vulgaris subsp. valdarnensis, originally described from this very area. A dandelion microspecies, Taraxacum cerbariense, is putatively a narrow endemic confined to the Cerbaie themselves. In total, 44 taxa of conservation interest are present, among them six species listed as Endangered at the national level, including Baldellia ranunculoides, the water-violet Hottonia palustris and Exaculum pusillum, a tiny gentian that in Tuscany now survives only here, alongside the marsh gentian Gentiana pneumonanthe.

The shadow hanging over this richness is the alien flora. One hundred naturalized non-native taxa grow in the hills, about nine percent of the established flora, and this figure exceeds the model-based expectation by a remarkable 53 percent. Among them is the tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, one of the handful of invasive species listed under European Union Regulation 2019/1262, while the North American black locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, is spreading through the woods alongside maritime pine. The authors note that surrounding territories can fare even worse, with the municipality of Empoli showing alien richness more than 200 percent above expectation, but the trend at Cerbaie is unambiguous and tracks the intensification of land use across the Tuscan lowlands.

For the researchers, the message of the inventory is twofold. Scientifically, the Cerbaie hills demonstrate that exceptional biodiversity does not require mountains; a combination of acidic substrates, humid microclimates and biogeographical position at the meeting point of Mediterranean and Eurosiberian zones can generate a flora comparable to that of far more celebrated landscapes. Practically, the hills are already designated a Special Area for Conservation under the European Union’s Habitats Directive, and the new data, with their explicit lists of confirmed, doubtful, extinct and threatened taxa, provide the evidence base needed to target management. As the authors conclude, thanks to its rich and diversified flora, the Cerbaie hills stand out as one of the sites of highest phytogeographical and conservation interest in Tuscany, a status that now rests on verified, up-to-date data rather than on a scattered century and a half of records.

Subject of Research: Updated floristic inventory of the vascular flora of the Cerbaie hills in Tuscany, Italy

Article Title: An updated inventory of the vascular flora of the Cerbaie hills (Tuscany, Italy)

Article References: Gestri, G., Pierini, B., D’Antraccoli, M., Bernardini, A., & Peruzzi, L. (2023). An updated inventory of the vascular flora of the Cerbaie hills (Tuscany, Italy). Italian Botanist, 15, 165-175. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.15.105302

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.15.105302

Keywords: floristics, biodiversity, Tuscany, Cerbaie hills, vascular plants, alien species, conservation, biogeography, species-area relationship, endemic plants, updated, inventory

The expedition brought together eighteen active participants, along with six guests, drawn from universities and research institutions across Italy. Between 19 and 22 April 2022, the team traversed five carefully planned routes: three covering the southern, western and northern sectors of Lipari, one crossing the southern part of Panarea, and a final circuit through the main village of Lipari and its surroundings. The routes were designed to maximize environmental heterogeneity among sampling sites, to target areas with scarce floristic records, and to include localities of recognized naturalistic value. Habitats encountered ranged from dry stone walls and roadside verges to maquis scrub, garrigue, sea cliffs, beaches, abandoned agricultural terraces and ornamental plantings around settlements.

In total, the participants prepared 1,664 herbarium specimens, each pressed, dried and labelled for long-term preservation in public and private herbaria. Every collector drafted an individual list of the species they had gathered, and the coordinator of the working group later merged these lists and convened a workshop at the Herbarium Mediterraneum Panormitanum of the University of Palermo in February 2023 to revise critical collections and resolve unidentified specimens. The resulting inventory comprises 386 specific and subspecific taxa belonging to 241 genera and 74 families. Taxonomic nomenclature follows the updated checklists of the vascular flora native and alien to Italy, together with subsequent updates compiled in the Portal to the Flora of Italy.

Perhaps the most striking result concerns the alien species. Of the 386 taxa recorded, 48, or 12.4 percent, are not native to the region: 20 are casual, 26 naturalized and two invasive. The invasive pair, Ailanthus altissima, the tree of heaven, and Oxalis pes-caprae, the Bermuda buttercup, are notorious invaders elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Among the aliens, one discovery stands out: Oenothera odorata, an evening primrose native to South America, is here recorded as a naturalized species new to the entire Italian vascular flora. The Lipari population had previously been misidentified as Oenothera stricta subsp. stricta in records dating back to 2008. Careful morphological study of the newly collected specimens, following the standard taxonomic treatment of the genus and confirmed by direct comparison with original material of both species, established the correct identity. The authors note that other Italian records currently attributed to Oenothera stricta subsp. stricta also require verification, suggesting that this South American plant may be more widespread in Italy than previously thought.

Four additional aliens were recorded for the first time in Sicily. Dimorphotheca ecklonis, an ornamental daisy from South Africa, Nassella tenuissima, a fine-leaved Argentinian grass popular in gardens, Solanum torvum, a spiny shrub known as turkey berry, and Viola wittrockiana, the familiar garden pansy, all turned up during the survey. The finding of Nassella tenuissima carries particular concern: the grass was recently planted as an ornamental near a winery on Lipari and is already spreading into surrounding areas, probably through wind dispersal of its seeds. The researchers strongly recommend its removal before it becomes naturalized on the island, a cautionary example of how horticultural choices can seed future invasions on ecologically fragile islands.

The survey also documented the escape of other ornamental plantings. Phyllostachys aurea, golden bamboo, is being maintained as a living fence around a villa on Panarea and has begun reproducing vegetatively beyond its intended bounds, sending up new shoots in the surrounding area. Such observations illustrate a recurring theme of the study: the ornamental trade and gardening practices around settlements act as a continuous pipeline of potential invaders onto these small islands, where native communities have evolved in isolation and often lack defences against vigorous newcomers.

Against this wave of aliens, the native endemic flora of the two islands proved remarkably limited in the sampled area. Only three Italian endemics were found: Centaurea aeolica, a knapweed exclusive to the Aeolian archipelago, Helichrysum litoreum, a curry-scented everlasting also present in other Tyrrhenian Italian regions, and Dianthus rupicola subsp. aeolicus, a cliff-dwelling pink that also occurs on the promontory of Capo Milazzo in northeastern Sicily. Both the helichrysum and the pink are listed as Least Concern in the Red List of the Italian endemic flora. Centaurea aeolica is the only one of the three restricted entirely to the Aeolian Islands, a reminder of how narrowly some endemics are distributed and how easily a single localized disturbance could erase them. The researchers emphasize that small Mediterranean islands are biodiversity hotspots harbouring rare habitats and endemic species, making the spread of invasive species a particularly serious environmental threat there.

Not every significant find involved an alien. The survey relocated Wahlenbergia lobeliodes subsp. nutabunda on Panarea at Costa del Capraro, roughly 120 years after it was last recorded there by the pioneering botanist Michele Lojacono-Pojero in 1903, and about 40 years after a later record from Cala dei Zimmari. This ephemeral plant, which also occurs in Sardinia and Calabria, has a very short vegetative cycle, making it easy to overlook and rarely reported. Equally notable was Serapias nurrica subsp. nurrica, an orchid absent from earlier published sources for the islands, found on Panarea within old abandoned agricultural terraces and on wasteland in the southern and western parts of Lipari. Gamochaeta pensylvanica, a North American neophyte first collected in Italy in 1980 and in Sicily in 2015, was also recorded, apparently introduced as a contaminant by plant nurseries and steadily expanding its range.

The choice of Lipari and Panarea reflects a deliberate strategy. The Italian Botanical Society’s working group has spent two decades organizing floristic excursions to poorly explored corners of the country, selecting territories based on gaps in floristic knowledge. Although botanists have visited the Aeolian Islands since the first half of the nineteenth century, beginning with Giovanni Gussone’s landmark floras of Sicily in the 1820s through the 1840s, followed by Lojacono-Pojero in 1877 and 1902 and Giuseppe Zodda in 1902, complete and updated floristic lists for Lipari and Panarea have never been published. Gioachino Ferro of the University of Catania devoted much of his career to the archipelago’s flora, but his death halted publication of his synthesis. Before this survey, the Wikiplantbase #Sicilia database held only 262 records for Lipari and just 107 for Panarea.

Both islands are quiescent volcanoes shaped by fire and by centuries of human activity. Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands at 37.2 square kilometres and reaching 594 metres on Mount Sant’Angelo, is built of varied volcanic formations producing ever-shifting regosols and lithosols, and more than 660 taxa have been documented for it, 14 percent of them alien to Italy. Panarea, far smaller at 3.3 square kilometres and 420 metres at its peak, is composed of andesitic to dacitic and rhyolitic rocks, with weak hydrothermal activity on Lipari’s western side and active submarine fumaroles about 2.5 kilometres off its coast. Human presence dates back to the fifth millennium before present, and Greek and Roman colonization brought the first profound landscape changes; until the early twentieth century most of the islands’ surface was cultivated. Today agriculture covers only about 15 percent of Lipari and 5 percent of Panarea, and abandoned fields are being recolonized by natural vegetation, including Erica arborea and Arbutus unedo maquis, Cistus and Genista tyrrhena garrigues, and grasslands. The new inventory provides the baseline that conservationists and island managers need to track these changes, to catch invasive species before they take hold, and to protect the endemic plants that exist nowhere else.

Subject of Research: Floristic inventory of the volcanic islands Lipari and Panarea in the Aeolian archipelago, Sicily

Article Title: Contribution to the floristic knowledge of Lipari and Panarea Islands (Sicilia, Italy)

Article References: Barone, G., Bajona, E., Bartolucci, F., Cancellieri, L., Caruso, G., Conti, F., Domina, G., Fascetti, S., Franzoni, J., Laface, V. L. A., Pinzani, L., Rosati, L., Scoppola, A., Stinca, A., Tilia, A., & Crisafulli, A. (2023). Contribution to the floristic knowledge of Lipari and Panarea Islands (Sicilia, Italy). Italian Botanist, 16, 59-71. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.16.113415

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.16.113415

Keywords: floristics, Aeolian Islands, Lipari, Panarea, alien species, endemic plants, herbarium specimens, biodiversity, invasive species, Sicily, Mediterranean flora, Oenothera odorata

The technical core of the study rests on a classic but still indispensable method: the chromosome squash preparation. For most of the species examined, researchers germinated seeds in the laboratory and harvested root tips, the regions of most active cell division. These tips were pre-treated with a colchicine solution, either 0.3% or 0.4% depending on the laboratory protocol, for about three hours. Colchicine disrupts the spindle fibers that normally pull chromosomes apart during cell division, effectively arresting cells in metaphase, the stage at which chromosomes are most condensed and easiest to count. The tissue was then fixed in Carnoy solution, an ethanol and acetic acid mixture that preserves cellular architecture, before hydrolysis in hydrochloric acid at 60 degrees Celsius and staining with Schiff reagent or leuco-basic fuchsine, dyes that bind specifically to DNA. The result is a single-layer preparation in which each cell’s chromosome complement can be observed and counted under the microscope.

The first of the new counts concerns Damasonium alisma, a striking aquatic plant of the water-plantain family, sampled from a temporary Mediterranean pond at Funtana Satoa on the island of Sardinia. The team counted 2n = 28 chromosomes, confirming that the Sardinian plants are tetraploid, with four copies of the basic chromosome set. This aligns with the established understanding that D. alisma is a tetraploid species distributed across England, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia, and Ukraine, and is considered the northern counterpart of the diploid D. bourgaei, which has 2n = 14. The finding matters because a previous count from Sicily, reported decades ago under a different name, showed a diploid number, and D. bourgaei itself has been recorded in Sicily. That raises the possibility of a misidentification in the earlier Sicilian record. The authors argue that clarifying the true distribution of these two taxa in Italy will require a more in-depth study combining morphological and karyological evidence.

Sardinian temporary ponds yielded another first: the chromosome number of Helosciadium crassipes, an umbellifer found in shallow seasonal wetlands that flood in winter or late spring. These habitats belong to a vegetation alliance associated with habitat 3120 of the European Habitats Directive, which protects oligotrophic waters with amphibious vegetation, a priority conservation type. Until now, the species’ chromosome number was entirely unknown. The count of 2n = 22, obtained from plants collected at Perdiana in the province of Oristano, fits neatly with numbers reported for the closely related H. inundatum species group and for most other members of the genera Helosciadium and Apium. For a plant whose wetland habitats are among Europe’s most threatened, even this basic piece of biological information adds to the foundation needed for conservation planning.

The mountain floras of southern and northern Italy contributed their own surprises, particularly among the hawkweeds of the genus Hieracium, a group notorious for its complexity. Hieracium terraccianoi, a hemicryptophytic herb endemic to the Calabrian side of the Pollino Massif within Pollino National Park, was counted for the first time from material gathered at the species’ type locality. The result, 2n = 36, corresponds to a tetraploid level and agrees with counts available for other members of Hieracium sect. Grovesiana, a cluster of similar morphotypes that has challenged botanists for decades.

Three more hawkweed counts, all yielding 2n = 27, or a triploid level, further illuminate this intricate genus. Hieracium hypochoeroides subsp. cilentanum, a rock-dwelling endemic of Monte Cervati in Campania counted at 1,860 meters elevation, belongs to an aggregate of apomictic taxa that likely evolved during the post-glacial period, many of them narrow endemics that survived as relicts in southern Europe. Apomixis, the asexual production of seeds without fertilization, allows triploid plants to reproduce despite their odd chromosome number, which would normally render them sterile. Hieracium lesimanum and Hieracium scopolioides, both endemic to Mount Lesima in the Ligurian Apennines and both known only from their type localities on the mountain’s northern slope, were also found to be triploid. For H. scopolioides, the count is consistent with the only known ploidy estimate in its section, while H. lesimanum’s number matches observations in related taxa of the H. prenanthoidea group in Europe. The repeated pattern of triploidy in these young, range-restricted endemics supports the view that apomictic reproduction has been a major engine of diversification in this genus, generating distinct lineages without the need for sexual recombination.

The carnation family contributed two notable results. Dianthus carthusianorum subsp. tenorei, a subspecies endemic to Italy and distributed through the southern-central Apennines from Marche to Calabria, was counted for the first time from material collected at Monte Pollino at 2,000 meters. The standard count of 2n = 30 confirms the numbers obtained for other subspecies in Italy and central-eastern Europe. Intriguingly, the researchers also spotted cells with 2n = 60 chromosomes within the same root tip, a phenomenon known as endopolyploidy, in which cells duplicate their DNA without dividing. Endopolyploidy is common in many Dianthus species and, while it does not change the germ line’s genetic makeup, it reflects an additional layer of genomic flexibility in this charismatic genus of ornamental and wild flowers.

The second caryophyllid finding concerns Illecebrum verticillatum, a sub-Atlantic species of temporary ponds across Europe and North Africa. In Italy, the plant occurs in Piedmont, Sardinia, and Tuscany, and the Tuscan populations are particularly rare, with recent confirmations restricted to a single area at Montalbano in the municipality of Carmignano. Material from that area showed 2n = 10, a low chromosome number already known from elsewhere in Europe but recorded here for the first time in Italian populations. Meanwhile, in Piedmont, the team obtained the first Italian count for Crupina vulgaris, a widespread southern European composite sampled near Acqui Terme. The result, 2n = 30, matches counts from other European populations and provides a useful reference point for distinguishing the species from its relatives: the more Mediterranean C. crupinastrum has 2n = 28, while C. intermedia, an allopolyploid of hybrid origin, has 2n = 58. Because these species overlap in Italy, chromosome data offer a critical line of evidence for identifying plants and tracing how hybridization has shaped the group’s evolution.

What emerges from this cumulative exercise is a portrait of the Italian flora as a laboratory of evolutionary processes. Polyploidy, apomixis, endopolyploidy, and hybridization each leave fingerprints in chromosome numbers, and every new count helps place a species on the map of these processes. Tetraploid aquatic plants in Sardinian ponds, triploid hawkweeds clinging to Apennine and Apuan summits, and diploid rarities in disappearing wetlands each tell a story about how lineages originate, persist, and sometimes retreat to the edges of their former ranges. Chromosome counts also have immediate practical value: they help resolve taxonomic ambiguities, flag likely misidentifications in old records, and inform conservation assessments for narrow endemics whose entire known range may span a single mountain slope or a single pond.

The study is the thirteenth contribution to a long-running series dedicated to chromosome numbers for the Italian flora, and the series continues to accept new data. Researchers are invited to submit contributions including voucher specimens and methods, ensuring that each count remains traceable to a physical herbarium or germplasm record. That rigor, with seeds deposited in germplasm banks and herbarium specimens preserved for verification, is what transforms a simple count of chromosomes into durable scientific evidence. As Mediterranean temporary ponds shrink and mountain endemics face shifting climates, documenting the genomic architecture of Italy’s plants is not merely bookkeeping. It is a race to understand, and ultimately to protect, a living heritage written in chromosomes.

Subject of Research: Chromosome numbers of plant taxa in the Italian flora

Article Title: Chromosome numbers for the Italian flora: 13

Article References: Astuti, G., Bagella, S., Bajona, E., Barone, G., Becca, G., Caria, M. C., Di Gristina, E., Fainelli, F., Franzoni, J., Giacò, A., Orsenigo, S., Paliy, M., Rivieccio, G., Urbani, M., & Peruzzi, L. (2023). Chromosome numbers for the Italian flora: 13. Italian Botanist, 16, 135-148. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.16.116700

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.16.116700

Keywords: chromosome counts, Italian flora, cytogenetics, polyploidy, apomixis, Hieracium, endemic plants, Sardinia, temporary ponds, Dianthus, plant taxonomy, karyology

The first encounter took place in 2019, when one of the researchers, surveying orchids in Dehong County in Yunnan Province, came across an unidentified member of the genus Oreocharis growing on a rock wall. At the time, the plants could not be confidently assigned to any described species. Only in August 2025, during a carefully planned revisit, did the team manage to document the full range of morphological variation within the population and to search adjacent habitats that looked superficially suitable. Remarkably, no additional populations were found anywhere in the surrounding landscape, a result that immediately raised conservation concerns and sharpened the scientific case for describing the plant as a new species.

Oreocharis is a genus of perennial, rock-dwelling herbs in the gesneriad subfamily Didymocarpoideae, tribe Trichosporeae, subtribe Didymocarpinae. After a major taxonomic redefinition in 2011, which folded several formerly recognised genera such as Ancylostemon into its circumscription, and after a wave of subsequent new descriptions, the genus now contains more than 160 species. Its members are distributed widely across the tropical and subtropical regions of East Asia, and the great majority grow on steep mountain cliffs, typically on siliceous substrates. That preference for vertical, nutrient-poor, structurally complex rock faces has made Oreocharis a classic example of lithophytic specialization, and it also explains why new species continue to turn up in terrain that few collectors ever bother to climb.

The newly described plants are perennial herbs with very short rhizomatous stems and crowded roots, forming a basal rosette of seven to twelve leaves. The leaf blades are ovate to broadly ovate, papery when dried, shallowly heart-shaped at the base, and conspicuously bullate, meaning their upper surface is puckered or blistered between the veins. Dense, long, fulvous, yellowish-brown hairs cloak the petioles, and this character directly inspired the scientific name, whose epithet literally means tawny-haired. The inflorescences are pair-flowered cymes borne in the leaf axils, each carrying two to six zygomorphic flowers with slender yellow tubular corollas roughly two centimetres long. Four fertile stamens are hidden inside the tube, their filaments sharply bent back near the apex so that the anthers, which cohere in pairs, point upward. A single staminode and a ring-shaped disc complete the floral architecture.

It is the combination of yellow corollas and bullate leaves that places Oreocharis fulvovillosa within a small, morphologically coherent species group, and it is the fine details of that combination that set it apart. Among the more than 160 known species, only a handful share this pairing of traits. The new species most closely resembles O. bullata in its vegetative morphology and O. fulva in the form of its corolla, and it shows a general resemblance in leaf shape to O. hekouensis. The authors therefore conducted a rigorous comparative analysis, examining living plants in the field, studying herbarium material at major Chinese and international herbaria, consulting digital images of type specimens through JSTOR Global Plants, and reviewing the relevant taxonomic literature in detail.

The resulting comparison is decisive. Oreocharis fulvovillosa has crenulate, softly scalloped leaf margins, whereas O. bullata is doubly dentate, and the two species differ dramatically in flower and fruit proportions: the corolla tube of the new species is a slender tube of roughly one centimetre, compared with a tube of about 2.7 centimetres in O. bullata, and its capsules measure only one to 1.9 centimetres against 3.0 to 4.2 centimetres in its relative. Against O. fulva, which shares the yellow tubular corolla, the new species is separated by its strongly bullate leaves and crenulate rather than serrate to crenate margins. O. hekouensis lacks bullate leaves, has a much longer corolla tube of 2.4 to 3.0 centimetres, longer calyx lobes of around ten millimetres, stamens fused to the corolla tube for seven to eight millimetres rather than two to two and a half, and larger capsules. Taken together, these differences comfortably justify recognition of the Dehong population as a distinct species.

The formal description rests on a holotype specimen collected on 27 August 2025 at 1,950 metres elevation on the surface of moist cliffs in Mang City, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, and deposited at the herbarium of the Kunming Institute of Botany, with isotypes at other institutions. The species flowers from August to September and fruits in September. Internally, the anatomy follows the classic gesneriad blueprint: the ovary is single-loculed with two bifid, intrusive parietal placentas, the stigma is two-lobed, and the capsules dehisce loculicidally, splitting along the locule walls to release the seeds. The calyx is divided into five nearly equal lanceolate lobes almost to its base, a feature that again helps distinguish the plant from O. bullata, whose calyx is lobed only from the middle.

Perhaps the most consequential part of the paper concerns conservation. Targeted surveys within approximately one kilometre of the type locality failed to locate any additional subpopulations, meaning the entire known global range of Oreocharis fulvovillosa consists of a single cliff face near the summit of one small limestone hill. Using the IUCN standard two-by-two-kilometre grid, the area of occupancy is estimated at just four square kilometres, and the extent of occurrence cannot be meaningfully calculated from a single point. With approximately seventy mature individuals, the species is exposed to stochastic environmental events and to human pressures such as habitat degradation or collection. The authors accordingly assessed it as Critically Endangered under criterion B1ab(iii)+B2ab(iii) and D of the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, while noting that the assessment is preliminary and may be revised if future surveys in adjacent karst areas reveal more plants.

Beyond its formal taxonomy, the discovery carries a broader message about isolated karst landscapes. The scattered karst landform patches of western Yunnan, with their thin soils and rugged topography, often retain primary subtropical broad-leaved forest, and the cliff faces beneath these forests create ecological niches in which narrow endemics can persist for millennia. Oreocharis fulvovillosa grows on limestone rather than the siliceous rocks favoured by most of its relatives, hinting at the evolutionary versatility of the genus and at the role of edaphic specialization in driving local diversity. Because many of these karst islands lie outside nature reserves, their unique cliff-dwelling floras remain effectively unprotected, and the authors explicitly call for further investigation, research, and conservation action in such areas before small, irreplaceable populations vanish.

The story also illustrates how modern plant taxonomy actually works. Recent phylogenetic studies based on extensive sampling have clarified species relationships within Oreocharis and confirmed that characters such as corolla form, indumentum, and stamen structure are genuinely informative for delimiting species, giving morphological comparisons a molecular anchor. In the case of the new species, the diagnosis could be framed entirely on reproducible morphological evidence, checked against type specimens held in herbaria across several continents. For now, a tiny yellow-flowered herb with tawny, hairy stalks, known in Mandarin as Dehong zhiban jutai, survives on a single fifty-metre stretch of cliff in Dehong. Whether it remains there for another century will depend less on taxonomic science, which has now done its part, than on whether the fragile karst habitat it inhabits receives the protection it so clearly deserves.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic description and conservation assessment of a new cliff-dwelling plant species from Yunnan, China

Article Title: Oreocharis fulvovillosa ( Gesneriaceae ), a new species from western Yunnan, China

Article References: Wang, Y., Jiang, H., Xu, B., & Han, M.-Q. (2026). Oreocharis fulvovillosa (Gesneriaceae), a new species from western Yunnan, China. PhytoKeys, 276, 17-23. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.276.182136

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.276.182136

Keywords: Oreocharis fulvovillosa, Gesneriaceae, new species, Yunnan, karst, limestone cliffs, Critically Endangered, IUCN Red List, taxonomy, endemic plants, Dehong, China

Centaurea aplolepa is a species endemic to the Tyrrhenian side of central-northern Italy and, according to the taxonomic framework of Greuter from 2008, includes ten subspecies. The autonymic subspecies, Centaurea aplolepa subsp. aplolepa, is endemic to western Liguria, where it grows on garrigues and cliffs along the coastline. Seeds collected from plants on the rocky walls of Capo Noli in the province of Savona yielded a chromosome number of 2n = 18, reported here for the first time. The value accords with counts previously published for other subspecies of the complex by Viegi and colleagues in the 1970s, confirming that the westernmost member of the group shares the same karyological baseline as its relatives.

The second new count concerns Centaurea aplolepa subsp. bertolonii, endemic to the hills over and west of Genova. Its distribution range sits approximately between those of subsp. aplolepa to the west and subsp. levantina and subsp. lunensis to the east, a geographic pattern that has made it a key piece in reconstructing how the complex diversified along the Ligurian coast. Seeds from plants collected near Forte Sperone in Genova also gave 2n = 18, the first chromosome number ever reported for this subspecies. The consistency of the count across subspecies with distinct ecological preferences and disjunct ranges suggests that chromosome evolution has been conservative within the group, with differentiation proceeding at the level of ecology and geography rather than genome size.

A third subspecies, Centaurea aplolepa subsp. levantina, is described in Arrigoni’s 2003 taxonomic revision as a coastal ecotype endemic to eastern Liguria. Plants from small rocky outcrops near the pier at Sestri Levante in the province of Genova provided seeds that again revealed 2n = 18. The count, obtained from germinating seeds rather than from herbarium material, is reported for the first time and reinforces the emerging picture of a cytologically uniform species complex whose ten subspecies occupy a chain of specialized habitats along the Ligurian Tyrrhenian coast, from maritime cliffs to inland badlands.

The fourth subspecies, Centaurea aplolepa subsp. parvula, carries a particularly interesting biogeographic story. Although Arrigoni did not include it in his 2003 revision of the Centaurea paniculata group, recent Italian floristic checklists treat it as endemic to Liguria and Piemonte. In Liguria it is only reported for Rossiglione in the province of Genova, in a record dating back to Gola in 1912, while the only Piemontese record is the type locality at Acqui Terme in the province of Alessandria. During a field trip, the researchers found several populations growing on the badlands there, and seeds from these plants gave 2n = 18, the first count for the subspecies. The result extends the cytological uniformity of the complex beyond Liguria into Piemonte, supporting the view that subsp. parvula is a genuine member of the aplolepa group despite its earlier taxonomic neglect.

The fifth and final new count shifts from knapweeds to catchflies. Silene canescens is a psammophyte belonging to a species complex distributed throughout the sandy shores of southern Europe. Delineating its distribution range has long been difficult because of confusion with the closely related Silene colorata, and in Italy the species is considered taxonomically doubtful, although it is thought to occur along most of the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic coasts. Seeds collected at the retrodune of Marina di Torre del Lago in Viareggio, province of Lucca, and deposited at the germplasm bank of the Department of Biology of the University of Pisa, revealed a chromosome number of 2n = 2x = 24 for an Italian population, the first count of its kind for the country.

The Silene result is line with previous karyological data published by Blackburn and Morton in 1957, and it also matches counts available for the related Silene colorata compiled in later karyological databases. In practical terms, the diploid count of 24 for the Italian population helps anchor the cytological identity of a species whose Italian status has been uncertain, providing an independent line of evidence that can be compared with morphological and ecological data as botanists continue to disentangle the canescens-colorata species complex along the Italian coasts.

Technically, all five counts were obtained with a classical cytogenetic protocol applied to root tips from germinating seeds. Squash preparations were made on root tips pre-treated with 0.4% colchicine for three hours to arrest dividing cells at metaphase, then fixed in Carnoy solution for one hour. After hydrolysis in 1N hydrochloric acid at 60 degrees Celsius for seven and a half minutes for the Centaurea samples and eight minutes for the Silene sample, the tips were stained with leuco-basic fuchsine, a Schiff-based stain that colors chromosomes intensely while leaving the cytoplasm pale. The use of seeds rather than field-collected plants ensures that voucher specimens, deposited at the herbarium of the University of Pisa under barcodes including PI066169, PI066182, PI066170, PI066166 and PI063832, permanently document the source populations.

Why does a count of 2n = 18 or 2n = 24 matter beyond the herbarium? Chromosome numbers are among the most fundamental characters in plant systematics. They can reveal polyploidy, hybrid origins and reproductive isolation, and they often discriminate between morphologically similar species that occupy different habitats. For endemic complexes like Centaurea aplolepa, whose subspecies are confined to narrow ranges along the Ligurian coast, cytological data provide a baseline for conservation genetics and for understanding how local populations relate to one another. For taxonomically doubtful species like Silene canescens, a count from a documented Italian population can help settle whether the plants on Italian shores belong to the same biological species as those elsewhere in southern Europe.

The contribution is part of a serial effort to document chromosome numbers for the Italian flora, now at its fourteenth installment, and the authors invite further contributions: new chromosome data on Italian material, with indications on voucher specimens and methods used, can be submitted electronically to Antonio Giacò at the University of Pisa. As botanists continue to fill the cytogenetic map of Italy, each new count, however small it may seem, turns a morphological hypothesis about an endemic plant into a testable biological fact, one root tip at a time.

Subject of Research: Chromosome counts for Italian endemic Centaurea aplolepa subspecies and Silene canescens

Article Title: Chromosome numbers for the Italian flora: 14

Article References: Giacò, A., Carta, A., Franzoni, J., Mo, A., Pentassuglia, M., & Peruzzi, L. (2024). Chromosome numbers for the Italian flora: 14. Italian Botanist, 17, 69-75. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.17.128997

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.17.128997

Keywords: chromosome counts, Centaurea aplolepa, Silene canescens, Italian flora, cytogenetics, endemic plants, karyology, Liguria, Asteraceae, Caryophyllaceae, taxonomy, biodiversity

The geography of Feniglia is what makes it botanically exceptional. The dune system stretches roughly six kilometres long and one kilometre wide, covering about 4.92 square kilometres and rising no more than 14 metres above sea level. Together with another sandy strip, it encloses the Orbetello lagoon, cutting it off from the open Mediterranean Sea. According to the researchers, coastal dunes that lie in direct contact with coastal lagoons are genuinely rare in the Mediterranean Basin, where only about 54 main coastal lagoons exist and lagoon shores are typically dominated by shrubs or herbs rather than forest. Feniglia, by contrast, packs pine forest, dune and lagoon macrohabitats into a single narrow isthmus, a configuration that has earned it recognition as a protected biotope and as a distinctive biotope of the Mediterranean macchia.

The isthmus itself is a young landform, built during the late Quaternary period as carbonate-rich sands eroded from Monte Argentario were transported by sea waves and strong southwesterly winds. Its creation converted what was once an island of the Tuscan Archipelago into a promontory, and it now functions as an ecological corridor linking the peninsula to this former island, a connection of considerable biogeographical significance given the endemic animals and plants of Argentario. The sands that built the dune, however, nearly destroyed the lagoon when human mismanagement set them in motion again.

In the early 1800s, the municipality of Orbetello sold the dune to private owners who exploited it intensively for grazing and logging. Deforestation allowed sand to pour into the Orbetello lagoon, creating shallow marshes, harming fishing and increasing the risk of malaria. Authorities responded by building canals to improve water circulation, and reforestation plans were drafted around 1900, though landowners’ opposition delayed them until a 1910 law designated all of Feniglia as public land. In 1911, a consolidation and reforestation project began, mainly planting maritime pine and stone pine to stop the lagoon from silting up, alongside Mediterranean dune species such as Calamagrostis arenaria subsp. arundinacea, Cakile maritima, Juniperus macrocarpa, Euphorbia paralias and Medicago marina. The works covered about 360 hectares until 1925, and the forest eventually expanded to roughly 460 hectares. The researchers note this is likely the oldest ecological rehabilitation operation in Europe, and the new inventory was undertaken more than a century after it began.

Compiling the checklist demanded substantial detective work. The team retrieved all past botanical research conducted entirely or partly in the study area, from nineteenth-century surveys to studies carried out shortly after reforestation began and others conducted 70 to 80 years later, and complemented this data mining with fresh field surveys in 2023. Species recorded before the reforestation were excluded from the analyses, as were erroneous reports identified in theses, and planted species were counted only if they had naturalised. Collected specimens are preserved in the herbaria of Siena and Viterbo, and identifications followed standard Italian and European floras, with nomenclature aligned to the most recent checklists of the Italian flora. Each taxon was assigned a life form, a chorological type and ecological indicator values, and classified into preferential macrohabitats of forest, dune or lagoon to allow separate analyses.

The resulting inventory shows a flora dominated by three families: Poaceae with 72 taxa, Asteraceae with 54 and Fabaceae with 52, a pattern broadly consistent with the Italian flora as a whole, though with the first two families reversed. The high number of grasses reflects the presence of xerophilous, discontinuous small grasslands, including a priority habitat under the EU Habitats Directive that occurs as a mosaic in the pine forest understorey. The abundance of Amaranthaceae, with genera tied to coastal salt marshes, and Cyperaceae, linked to wet habitats, mirrors the isthmus’s brackish lagoon and freshwater wetlands. The genus Trifolium stands out with 16 taxa, likely favoured by sandy, silica-rich soils and numerous dry grasslands, while the natural presence of numerous Quercus species in such a limited area is noteworthy enough that the authors suggest it merits a dedicated study. Vascular cryptogams, by contrast, are represented by only two species, a scarcity the researchers attribute to limited summer water availability and the absence of rocky substrates.

A species-area analysis revealed that the observed flora is far richer than expected for an area of this size. The 502 recorded taxa exceed the predicted value of 377 by more than 33 percent, with native species exceeding expectations by 27.35 percent and alien species by 42.11 percent. The life-form spectrum is dominated by therophytes, short-lived plants that complete their cycle quickly and thrive on well-drained, nutrient-poor soils, followed by hemicryptophytes and phanerophytes. The ratio of hemicryptophytes to therophytes, at 0.54, reflects a Mediterranean-type bioclimate consistent with values reported for nearby protected areas. The chorological spectrum tells the same climatic story: Mediterranean species lead with 157 taxa, followed by Euromediterranean and Eurasiatic elements, confirming the picture painted by the biological forms and matching findings from other Tuscan coastal areas such as Monte Argentario, Diaccia Botrona and Lake Burano.

The conservation headline figures are striking. The inventory includes 15 species of the Tuscan Attention List and 3 species of the Italian Red List, alongside 3 Italian endemics: Ornithogalum exscapum, found in the pine forest; Limonium multiforme, endemic to the Tuscan coast from Livorno to the Ansedonia promontory; and Linaria purpurea, widespread in central and southern Italy. Sixteen species are considered rare in Tuscany, including Atriplex littoralis, whose Feniglia lagoon populations are the only recent and certain ones in the region and represent the southern limit of the species in Italy. Juncus sorrentinoi, known nationally only from Sardinia and Tuscany, is recorded here as only the second site for the region. Maresia nana, a psammophilous dune specialist, appears to survive in Tuscany at Feniglia alone. Staphisagria macrosperma, collected in the region over a century ago, persists in locally abundant populations near the reserve entrance on the Ansedonia side. Four species reach their northern distribution limit at Feniglia, and three species were found to be new for the province of Grosseto.

Alien species, often the bellwether of ecological degradation, are surprisingly scarce. The team found 26 alien species at the Italian level, of which 15 are invasive, 9 naturalised and 2 casual, a relatively low presence the researchers interpret as an excellent indicator of naturalness, especially since most occur with very limited populations. Of the numerous non-native species trialled during the historic reforestation experiments, including radiata pine, Monterey cypress and black locust, very few have naturalised and the majority are no longer present. Two discoveries stand out: Monterey cypress is reported as new to Tuscany, while white elm is new to the province of Grosseto. The lagoon environment, with its harsh salinity, anaerobic muddy substrate and fluctuating water levels, hosts no alien species at all and acts as a protective barrier for the isthmus. The authors also weigh in on the stone pine itself, noting that although some consider it alien in Italy, its Mediterranean origins and the persistence of dune species in its understorey mean not all authors agree on its alien status.

The study’s conclusions carry a message that extends well beyond one Tuscan dune. Feniglia has transitioned from shrubland to pasture to dune to forest over the past two centuries, yet it still supports species of particular conservation interest, many of them rare or at their geographical limits, and its low alien load signals genuine naturalness. The researchers argue that the multiple layers of protection now covering the area, as a State Nature Reserve, a Special Protection Area and part of Special Areas of Conservation, have been decisive in preserving its plant diversity despite the environmental upheavals of the last century and the tourist pressure of each summer. As a benchmark for future research in botany and related fields, the inventory demonstrates that floristic surveys, though time-demanding and increasingly neglected, remain the foundation for understanding and conserving natural heritage, and that well-designed protection can allow even a heavily modified landscape to recover its botanical soul.

Subject of Research: Floristic inventory of the vascular flora of the isthmus of Feniglia Nature Reserve in southern Tuscany, Italy

Article Title: Vascular flora of the isthmus of Feniglia (southern Tuscany, Italy)

Article References: Fiaschi, T., Bonari, G., Frignani, F., Gizzi, G., Landi, M., Magrini, S., Quilghini, G., Pafumi, E., Scoppola, A., & Angiolini, C. (2024). Vascular flora of the isthmus of Feniglia (southern Tuscany, Italy). Italian Botanist, 17, 77-101. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.17.122982

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.17.122982

Keywords: Feniglia, Tuscany, Italy, vascular flora, Mediterranean, coastal dunes, biodiversity, conservation, alien species, pine forest, Orbetello lagoon, endemic plants

The new survey, published in Italian Botanist, reports the results of the 2021 annual field trip of the Working Group for Floristics, Systematics and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society, organised by botanists from the Herbarium Universitatis Camerinensis at the University of Camerino. Over just two and a half days, from 24 to 26 June 2021, twenty participants intensively sampled roughly 700 hectares of the massif, which rises from 670 metres to 1,571 metres above sea level at the summit of Mount Pennino, within the municipalities of Nocera Umbra in Perugia and Fiuminata in Macerata.

To maximise coverage of the vascular flora, the team divided the study area into six sectors spanning deciduous woods, montane grasslands, rocky slopes, shrublands and humid environments. Sampling sites ranged from the south-western slopes of Mount Pennino and nearby Mount Acuto to the summit grasslands and the northern slopes of Colle Grugnoleta and Monte Finiglia in the Marche sector. The participants identified their own collections using standard floras and recent taxonomic literature, and critical specimens were later revised during a dedicated session at the Herbarium Universitatis Camerinensis in February 2022.

Some of the trickiest material required outside expertise. Specimens belonging to difficult genera such as Hieracium, Orobanche, Thymus, Anthyllis, Armeria, Koeleria, Brachypodium, Anthoxanthum and Juniperus were sent to specialists in Milan, Barisciano, Pisa, Tbinging, Palermo and elsewhere for definitive determination. The nomenclature follows the latest checklists of the vascular flora native and alien to Italy, and herbarium vouchers were deposited in public and private collections, ensuring that every record can be verified.

The tally is impressive for such a short campaign: 1,461 samples representing 413 species and subspecies, including one hybrid, distributed across 234 genera and 64 families. Thirty-seven taxa are endemic to Italy, and 42 species, about 10.2 percent of the list, are included in the IUCN Red List of the Italian Flora. Strikingly, only three alien species were recorded, namely Centaurea cyanus, Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare and Matricaria discoidea subsp. discoidea, a remarkably low figure that points to the intact character of the mountain’s vegetation.

The headline result is the discovery of eleven floristic novelties for the regional floras of Umbria and Marche. Anthoxanthum ovatum and the natural hybrid Brachypodium retusum by Brachypodium rupestre are new to the flora of Marche, with the hybrid found near the mountain top. Six taxa are entirely new for Umbria: Anthoxanthum ovatum, Dianthus carthusianorum subsp. carthusianorum, Erysimum apenninum, Hieracium pseudogrovesianum, Koeleria lucana and Koeleria pyramidata. A further four taxa are confirmed for Umbria after long absence from the records: Cynanchica pyrenaica subsp. neglecta, Polygala nicaeensis subsp. italiana, Stachys germanica subsp. germanica and Trigonella elegans.

Several of these records carry real biogeographic weight. Anthoxanthum ovatum was previously known in Italy only from Toscana, Campania, Calabria, Sicilia and Sardegna, so the central Apennine populations substantially extend its distribution. Polygala nicaeensis subsp. italiana had been reported only for Emilia-Romagna and Toscana, with a single historical Umbrian record from 1865, and the new collections fill a conspicuous gap in central Italy. Most notably, the endemic grass Koeleria lucana, described relatively recently from the Lucanian Apennines, now has its northernmost known stations on Mount Pennino, a significant range extension for a species of conservation interest.

The Red List component of the flora is equally telling. Of the 42 listed taxa, 36 are Italian endemics, comprising 26 species assessed as Least Concern, nine as Data Deficient and one as Nearly Threatened; only the recently recognised endemic Siler montanum subsp. stabianum has not yet been evaluated. The proportion of endemics and Red List species in the Umbrian sector is slightly higher than in other comparable mountain territories of the central Apennines, and the 30 Italian endemic taxa found there represent about a quarter of all endemics known from Umbria.

Not everything could be resolved in the field. Some specimens preliminarily attributed to the endemic knapweed Centaurea arrigonii require further study to clarify their taxonomic identity, and the authors emphasise that a survey lasting only two and a half days cannot be exhaustive. The massif’s geology of limestone bedrock, its annual rainfall of 1,200 to 1,300 millimetres concentrated in autumn and winter, and average temperatures between 7.5 and 11.5 degrees Celsius support beech coppices dominated by Fagus sylvatica, Turkey oak and hop hornbeam woods, and species-rich grasslands of Bromopsis erecta, Brachypodium rupestre, Sesleria nitida and Sesleria juncifolia, habitats that likely harbour many more species outside the June flowering peak.

Taken together, the findings argue that Batelli’s mediocrity has, at last, its historians. The combination of eleven regional novelties, a high share of endemics and Red List species, and an almost complete absence of aliens suggests that the Mount Pennino massif holds flora of considerable conservation value in this sector of the Umbria-Marche Apennines. The researchers conclude that the area deserves further investigation, and given what a brief expedition revealed, the misty colossus that Batelli defended in 1887 may soon surrender many more of its botanical secrets.

Subject of Research: Botany

Article Title: Contribution to the floristic knowledge of Mount Pennino massif (Umbria-Marche Apennines, central Italy)

Article References: Tardella, F. M., Pennesi, R., Ballelli, S., Cancellieri, L., Caruso, G., Falcinelli, F., Fascetti, S., Galasso, G., Gigante, D., Laface, V. L. A., Lattanzi, E., Lavezzo, P., Musarella, C. M., Pinzani, L., Quattrini, G., Rosati, L., Spada, F., Stinca, A., Tilia, A., & Catorci, A. (2024). Contribution to the floristic knowledge of Mount Pennino massif (Umbria-Marche Apennines, central Italy). Italian Botanist, 18, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.128215

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.128215

Keywords: floristics, Mount Pennino, Apennines, endemic plants, IUCN Red List, Umbria, Marche, Italy, plant conservation, biodiversity, Contribution, floristic

Rocca di Novara, also known as Rocca Salvatesta, rises to 1,340 meters on the southern edge of the Peloritani Mountains, a range that stretches roughly 70 kilometers along the island’s northeastern shoulder. Unlike the neighboring Peloritani peaks, which are built of ancient crystalline and metamorphic rocks such as gneisses and schists, Rocca di Novara is a small carbonate massif, a Mesozoic limestone formation resting on a siliceous basement. Its steep slopes, scree fields and sheer cliffs form a natural fortress against human access, which is precisely why the botanists chose it. The harsh topography has shielded rare plants from most anthropogenic disturbance, but it has also made a complete inventory nearly impossible using traditional walking-and-collecting methods alone.

The study originated in a field activity organized by the Italian Botanical Society as part of an intensive course in the determination of vascular plants, held on May 21, 2022. That initial group excursion, designed as a training exercise, evolved into a multi-season research effort. The team returned in May, June and November 2023 to capture the full seasonal spectrum of the local flora, from spring-blooming geophytes to autumn-drying annuals. Collected specimens were pressed, dried and deposited at the Herbarium of the University of Catania and the Herbarium Mediterraneum Panormitanum in Palermo, with identifications based primarily on the recent standard flora of Italy and nomenclature following the 2024 Italian checklist.

The technological heart of the investigation, however, was aerial. In May and June 2022 the researchers flew a compact DJI Mavic Mini drone along the vertical cliff faces of the summit, letting it hover while taking intermittent high-resolution photographs that could later be examined for diagnostic floral and vegetative characters. This vertical-flight, stop-and-shoot technique has become increasingly popular in cliff ecology because it allows researchers to identify many vascular plants on otherwise unreachable rock walls and to quantify cliff-face diversity without mountaineering equipment. It was exactly this approach that yielded the study’s most dramatic result: the rediscovery of Saxifraga callosa subsp. australis on the summit cliffs, confirming a population that had gone unconfirmed since the nineteenth century.

The numbers from the survey are impressive for such a small massif. The 300 recorded taxa belong to 189 genera and 51 families, with ferns contributing 10 species and flowering plants dominating the rest. Monocots account for 53 taxa, or about 17.75 percent, while eudicots make up the remaining 247. The richest families are the classic Mediterranean lineups: daisies lead with 37 taxa at 12.3 percent of the flora, followed by legumes with 30, mints with 24, grasses with 21, pinks with 18, cabbages with 16, orchids with 14, carrots with 11 and plantains with 10. Trifolium, the clovers, is the most species-rich genus with 14 taxa. The comparatively low grass count, the authors note, reflects the scarcity of grass-favored habitats: much of the mountain is cloaked in bracken communities or sheer subvertical cliffs dominated by other families altogether.

The phytogeographic signal is what elevates the study from a routine checklist to a document of real conservation weight. Thirteen of the recorded taxa are endemic to Italy, and a further 12 are strictly endemic to Sicily, each representing about 4 percent of the flora. Among the Sicilian endemics are Anthyllis albiflora, Centaurea gussonei, Dianthus graminifolius, Odontites bocconei subsp. bocconei, Symphytum gussonei and Trifolium bivonae. Some display striking distribution patterns: while most Sicilian endemics range across the island’s northern mountains, Centaurea gussonei is confined to the northeastern corner, and Anthyllis albiflora and Dianthus graminifolius are centered in the west. The Rocca di Novara population of Dianthus graminifolius, normally a plant of warm lowland grasslands, here clings to mountain cliffs and shows transitional characters toward a related species, prompting calls for further taxonomic study.

Even more remarkable are the disjunct occurrences of orophilous, or mountain-loving, species that in Sicily were otherwise known only from the Madonie massif further west. Aubrieta columnae subsp. sicula, Daphne oleoides subsp. oleoides, Helianthemum oelandicum subsp. incanum and Minuartia recurva subsp. condensata all reappear on the limestone walls of Rocca di Novara, forming an isolated outpost of Madonie-type high-mountain flora. The cool, humid microclimate at the summit evidently sustains conditions that vanished from the surrounding lowlands long ago. Other rarities add to the picture: the finding of Crepis sancta confirms a Sicilian presence that had been considered doubtful for decades, and the parasitic broomrape Phelipanche gussoneana is recorded for the first time in eastern Sicily. Helianthemum oelandicum subsp. incanum, previously known only from western Sicilian massifs, is reported here for the first time from the eastern part of the island.

The life-form spectrum tells its own ecological story. Therophytes, short-lived annuals and biennials that survive unfavorable seasons as seed, make up 39.3 percent of the flora, a signature of shallow soils, intense solar exposure, seasonal drought and frequent fires. Among the perennials, hemicryptophytes lead at 32.7 percent, followed by geophytes at 13 percent and chamaephytes at 10.7 percent. The chamaephyte figure is notably high and tracks directly with the casmophilous vegetation, plants wedged into rock crevices, that colonizes the limestone cliffs of the upper massif. Woody phanerophytes are scarce at just 3.7 percent, reflecting the near-total loss of the original holm oak forest to grazing, fires and browsing; today only scattered nuclei of Quercus ilex with isolated hop-hornbeams persist, and nemoral species such as Stachys sylvatica and Fritillaria messanensis survive in the shade of bracken clumps and cliff bases.

The conservation implications are stark. Of the 300 taxa inventoried, 36, or 12 percent, fall within IUCN risk categories. Aubrieta columnae subsp. sicula, Fritillaria messanensis subsp. messanensis and Linaria multicaulis subsp. multicaulis are classified as Endangered, while Centaurea gussonei and Dianthus graminifolius are Vulnerable and five further species are Near Threatened. Encouragingly, not a single alien species was recorded, consistent with the pattern that non-native plants in Sicily concentrate in disturbed coastal zones rather than remote mountains. Yet the entire area is part of the Natura 2000 network only on paper; the authors highlight a troubling gap between the site’s formal protection as a Special Area of Conservation and the absence of active conservation measures on the ground.

Comparisons with the historical record sharpen the urgency. Nicotra’s 1880 list for the mountain included just 50 species, 13 of which the new survey failed to find. Some absences may reflect misidentifications or temporary sampling gaps among widespread annuals, but the disappearance of orophilous and shade-loving species may point to something more systemic: decades of climate change and human-driven deforestation eroding the ecological niches these plants occupy. One species, Silene calycina, reported by Nicotra on these very cliffs and known elsewhere only from the western Madonie, has never been found again and is probably extinct. The researchers also documented phenological shifts, with blooms arriving early or late as temperatures fluctuate. Against these pressures, the rediscovered saxifrage on the summit walls stands as both a warning and a demonstration: the drone-borne camera has opened a new window onto vertical botanical worlds just in time to show what still can be saved.

Subject of Research: Drone-based floristic survey of the vascular plants and endemic cliff flora of the Rocca di Novara massif in northeastern Sicily

Article Title: Using drone imagery and group field activities for an in-depth investigation of the vascular flora: a case study in the Rocca di Novara Massif (NE Sicily, Italy)

Article References: Porrovecchio, M., Cambria, S., Bacilliere, G., Barone, G., Crisafulli, A., Di Gristina, E., Di Pasquale, C., Di Mauro, M., Domina, G., Luchino, F., Marici, C., Miraglia, G., Tavilla, G., & Sciandrello, S. (2024). Using drone imagery and group field activities for an in-depth investigation of the vascular flora: a case study in the Rocca di Novara Massif (NE Sicily, Italy). Italian Botanist, 18, 13-28. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.127209

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.127209

Keywords: Rocca di Novara, Sicily, flora, endemic plants, drone survey, Saxifraga callosa, Peloritani Mountains, plant conservation, biodiversity, limestone cliffs, IUCN, Natura 2000