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• Botanical comparison of man-made landforms in the Nagykunság and Nagy-Sárrét regions (E Hungary)

  65-76

  Szabolcs Kis

  Views:

  192

  Loess grasslands are among the most important vegetation types of the Great Hungarian Plain. This paper compares the composition of vegetation situated on three types of man-made landforms (burial mounds, Devil’s dykes and river dikes) which were built in different historical times. I studied the similarities and differences in their vegetation, focusing on the rare species and plant associations. I studied six burial mounds, two Devil’s dykes and four river dikes. All of the studied landforms were covered by loess steppes, loess cliffs or Artemisia salt steppes. Devil’s dykes had the most valuable vegetation and they preserve a very diverse flora in the landscape.

• Survey on the bryophyte flora of the kurgans along the river Hernád (Hungary)

  153–161

  Péter Szűcs

  Views:

  415

  This paper presents the results of the first bryofloristic survey in kurgans from North East Hungary. Altogether 41 taxa (1 liverwort and 40 mosses) were recorded from nine burial mounds. The most frequent mosses were Brachythecium rutabulum, Tortula acaulon var. acaulon and Barbula unguiculata from the localities. I found several infrequent bryophyte species on the surveyed Hungarian kurgans, such as Acaulon muticum, Acaulon triquetrum, Pterygoneurum subsessile, Riccia ciliata, Tortula caucasica, Trichostomum brachydontium and Trichostomum crispulum. There was no correlation between the number of bryophytes and the area of the kurgans. The proportion of the annual shuttle life strategy, i.e. species with a very short life span, is relatively high compared to other recent studies from Hungary (e.g. Buda arboretum and Balaton village), thereby these habitats may be potential refuges for ephemeral bryophytes.

• Discovery of a new large population of Prunus tenella on a young old-field suggests remarkable regeneration ability of the species

  32-38

  Balázs Deák

  Tibor Orcsik

  Ádám Bede

  Orsolya Valkó

  Views:

  302

  Kurgans are ancient burial mounds built by nomadic steppic cultures across Eurasia.
  These monuments are important cultural landmarks, and often also preserve the remnants of dry grasslands even in intensively used agricultural landscapes. In the past centuries, many kurgans have been ploughed and their vegetation has been destroyed. Due to their recent inclusion in the agrienvironmental schemes in Hungary, crop production has been ceased on many kurgans in the past years. Here we present an interesting botanical discovery which we made during our country-scale survey of spontaneously recovering grasslands on kurgans. We discovered a large population of approximately 15,000 shoots of the protected loess grassland plant Prunus tenella Batsch (syn.: Amygdalus nana L.) on the Fekete-halom kurgan near Tiszainoka, in the centre of the Great Hungarian Plain. The mound had been used as an intensive cropland until 2014. Most probably, the plants could re-establish from some hidden shoots that could persist in the refuge provided by the concrete elements of a geodesic mark, and after the cessation of ploughing it could expand onto the north and west-facing slopes of the mound by sprouting and by germination from the persistent soil seed bank. Besides the conservation importance of this floristic discovery, it also suggests that spontaneous regeneration can be an effective restoration measure and that kurgans abandoned from agricultural cultivation can serve as suitable habitats for rare and endangered species.

• Contributions to the flora of kurgans in the Middle Tisza region

  94–105

  Balázs Deák

  Péter Török

  Béla Tóthmérész

  Szilvia Radócz

  Katalin Lukács

  Orsolya Valkó

  Views:

  513

  Kurgans are ancient burial mounds built by nomadic steppic cultures. Embedded in the heavily transformed landscapes of the Carpathian Basin they often serve as last refuges for rare and endangered plant species. In our paper we publish floristic data collected on 82 kurgans located in the area of the Hortobágy National Park Directorate. Our dataset covers 64 CEU quarter quadrates, and the territory of 45 settlements. We provide data on 39 taxa that are either protected (e.g. Anchusa barrelieri, Centaurea solstitialis, Ranunculus illyricus and Phlomis tuberosa) or regionally rare (e.g. Aegilops cylindrica, Astragalus austriacus, Glaucium corniculatum and Trifolium diffusum). Our records demonstrate that kurgans have a vital role in maintaining the populations of rare and endangered grassland species even in transformed landscapes.