Towards an Excursion Flora for Austria and all the Eastern Alps

Abstract

This is on the one hand an announcement of the two-volume Fourth Edition of the Excursion Flora for Austria expanded by also including the remaining parts of the Eastern Alps (chapter 1), and on the other hand a rough survey of the flora of the Eastern Alps in connection with the main vegetation types (chapter 2). The geographical scope includes, besides Austria, the entire Eastern Alps from the Rhine valley in E Switzerland (Grisons) to the Vipava valley in SW Slovenia. Volume 1 mainly contains comprehensive introductory chapters like introductions to plant morphology, taxonomy, and nomenclature, as well as a sketch of ecomorphology and habitat ecology, a survey of vegetation types (phytosociology) and floristic peculiarities of the different natural regions, a rough history of floristic research, a detailed glossary including the meaning of epithets, etc., and drawings of several plant species characteristic of the flora covered. The structure of the keys concentrated in volume 2 is explained: besides the descriptive traits, they include for each taxon comprehensive ecological and plant geographical data, as well as information about Red Lists of the countries involved, plant uses, and taxonomical problems. Genus names are given not only in German, but also in the Romansh (Rumantsch Grischun), Italian, and Slovenian languages. In chapter 2, some important chorotypes including endemics are characterised, and an overview of floristic diversity (lists of exemplary taxa) in accordance with the main and most characteristic vegetation types is presented.

Keywords

• flora
• Alps
• chorotypes
• endemism
• identification keys
• Vienna diacritical method
• vegetation