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• The Sea milkwort (Glaux maritima) in the Carpathian Basin

  10-20

  Gábor Lendvai

  Views:

  337

  Sea milkwort (Glaux maritima L.) is a broadly distributed species in the northern hemi­sphere, inhabiting primarily maritime habitats from the arctic to the temperate zones. It is also found inland in semi-arid and arid regions with saline soils. Its status in the Carpathian Basin has become very uncertain owing to the lack of known extant populations. To evaluate its current status, I review all known occurrences within the Carpathian Basin where this species has been recorded or collected, and report five new localities of the species in Hungary, all in the western part of the Great Hungarian Plain. I also analyze habitat relationships of the species using traditional phytosociological relevés. Review of species distribution data in the Carpathian Basin revealed that sea milkwort has undergone severe reduction in population number and disappeared from many localities. Currently, only a few populations can be found in this region: the Northern Carpathians in Slovakia and the western part of the Great Plain in Hungary. In Transylvania (Romania), only a single population has been reported recently suggesting the critical status of the species there. Features of the habitats confirm the halophytic nature of the species and its fidelity to wet saline meadows. Its common accompanying species are mostly broadly distributed, salt-tolerant plants. Heterogeneity of the samples in species composition suggests that sea milkwort is not a habitat-specialist species. Several of its common associates in Hungary are also found in sea milkwort habitats in Mongolia, Asia and Utah, North America. Based on the available evidence, sea milkwort shall be considered a severely threatened plant in the Carpathian Basin. Characteristics of the vegetation in its habitats do not explain its occurrence in mountainous environments.

• Distribution and flora of areas with alkaline and saline soils in the Mezőföld, Hungary

  39-61

  Gábor Lendvai

  Views:

  237

  Areas with  alkaline and saline (solonetz and solonchak) soils occupy substantial areas in the westernmost, Trans­danubian part of the Great Hungarian Plain (Mezőföld). To this date, the flora and vege­tation of only two localities have been studied in some detail, while the rest has remained largely unknown in this respect. In this paper, I provide brief descriptions of these little-known areas and present a list of halophytes with distribution data from the last 17 years. The names of the plants are followed by the name of the township and the geographical location where the plant was found, the code of the grid cell of the Central European Flora Survey grid that includes the location, and in selected species, the year when the species was first recorded. The list is arranged in alphabetical order irrespective of taxonomy. The occur­rence data indicate that the floras of these saline-alkaline areas represent only subsets of, but in combina­tion are almost identi­cal to the overall flora of similar habitats in the Sárvíz plain.

• The flora of the Sárvíz plain (Mezőföld, Hungary)

  207–226

  Gábor Lendvai

  Views:

  331

  In this paper, I present chorological data on the plants growing on the alluvial plain of the Sárvíz river in eastern Transdanubia, Hungary. Species characteristic of reed and sedge marshes, salt lakes and alkali flats, as well as remnants of hardwood forests and mesoxeric grasslands are listed in the enumeration. Since 2004, I have confirmed the occurrence of 50 species previously not recorded in the study area. Here, I report the species names, followed by data on the locality: the name of the township, the geographical name of the locality, and the code(s) of both grid systems, the Central European Flora Mapping System (CEU) and the UTM. Sites where I observed or collected the species after 2004 are in bold. Names of species new to the study area are underlined.

• Historical occurrence of Spergularia echinosperma, a rare Nanocyperion species in Hungary

  3–9

  Attila Mesterházy

  Pavel Kúr

  Views:

  300

  Three species of the genus Spergularia have been known from Hungary. The most widespread one, Spergularia rubra (L.) J. Presl et C. Presl occurs on young sandy fallow fields and other disturbed habitats.  The other species, S. marina (L.) Bess. and S. media (L.) C. Presl, occur sporadically in saline grasslands, and both have been recently spreading along salted roads. During a revision of the genus Spergularia in Hungarian herbaria, specimens of the species S. echinosperma (Čelak.) Asch. et Graebn. were found. It is a rare species previously known to occur only in Czechia and Germany and to be extinct in Austria and Slovakia (a few occurrences along the Morava and Danube rivers between 1909 and 1953). However, it was recently discovered in Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. It is a typical mudflat plant that occurs on exposed sandy shores of water bodies. Two herbarium sheets collected by Gyula Tauscher from near the village of Ercsi (riverbank of the Danube) in 1903 were found in the Carpato-Pannonicum collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. In addition, a new specimen was found, collected in Slovakia (Danube near Šamorín, collected by Mihály Résely in 1868) at the vicinity of the Hungarian border. The species was not confirmed during a field inspection of the target localities in Hungary; therefore, we have to consider it extinct in the country as well as in the whole Pannonian Basin. Recently, S. echinosperma was split into two subspecies – subsp. echinosperma and subsp. albensis. The subsp. echinosperma is probably restricted to fishponds in the SW part of Czechia and subsp. albensis occurs mainly in the floodplains of the river Elbe in Germany. The extinct populations of S. echinosperma in the Pannonian Basin belonged to the subsp. albensis. This taxon is morphologically close to S. rubra but can be reliably distinguished by densely verrucose seeds and shorter than wide stipules.