Contribution to the floristic knowledge of the head of the Po Valley (Piedmont, north Italy)

Adriano Soldano,M Bovio ,Adriano Stinca,Simonetta Peccenini,C Gangale ,Romeo Di Pietro,Simonetta Fascetti,Fabrizio Bartolucci,Leonardo Rosati,E Lattanzi ,Laura Cancellieri,Francesco Faraoni,Gabriele Galasso,Dimitar Uzunov,Giovanni Salerno,Enrico Banfi,R R Masin ,Enrico Vito Perrino,Annalaura Pistarino,Massimo Barbo,Daniela Bouvet,Fabio Conti,Vito Antonio Romano,A Tilia

doi:10.3897/italianbotanist.5.24546

Abstract

In 2014, the annual field trip of the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society was held in Piemonte (northern Italy), at the head of the Po Valley. This valley, at whose extremity is located the Monviso (3,841 m a.s.l.), belongs to the Cottian Alps about which very little is known from a floristic point of view. An inventory of the taxa of vascular plants collected during the field trip is reported here. The research led to the identification of 3,546 exsiccata, kept in nine public and nine private collections. A total of 669 taxa belonging to 79 plant families were recorded. Six taxa resulted endemic to Italy and three exclusive to Piemonte, while only nine alien species were detected; six taxa are new and five confirmed for the regional flora.

Highlights

This contribution is part of the activities promoted by the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society, which, since 2003, has given particular emphasis to territorial research aimed at floristic censuses, jointly conducted by botanists from different Administrative Regions
In 2014, the annual field trip of the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society was held in Piemonte, at the head of the Po Valley
Keywords Cottian Alps, regional flora, new floristic records, vascular flora

Summary

Introduction

This contribution is part of the activities promoted by the working group for Floristics, Systematics, and Evolution of the Italian Botanical Society, which, since 2003, has given particular emphasis to territorial research aimed at floristic censuses, jointly conducted by botanists from different Administrative Regions. One of the main goals of the working group is to increase knowledge about the vascular flora of poorly known areas. We present the results of a field trip held in 2014 in Piemonte (northern Italy), organized by Daniela Bouvet, Annalaura Pistarino and Adriano Soldano. The aim of the trip was to increase our floristic knowledge of the Po Valley on the Piemonte side of the Cottian Alps. The area that has been poorly studied from floristic and vegetational points of view (Bouvet et al 2005), and the valley is considered an “area with intermediate floristic knowledge”

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Results

Conclusion