ENDEMIC PLANTS OF THE UKRAINIAN CARPATHIANS IN KAREL DOMIN’S CARD INDEX

Abstract

Karel Domin was a famous Czech botanist of the beginning of 20th century, significantly contributed to investigations of the flora of Carpathian region. Apart from huge herbarium collection and number of published scientific papers, he left for progenies the card index indicating the distribution of different plant taxa on the territory of former Czechoslovakia. This card index was developed during the preparation of determination key of plants of Czechoslovakia and currently it is hosted at the Institute of Botany CAS in Průhonice (Czech Republic). Another outstanding botanist, Ján Futák made a copy of that part of Domin’s card index, which represented taxa distributed in Slovakia region (including the Podkarpatská Rus region currently belonging to Ukraine) and deposited this copy at the Institute of Botany SAS in Bratislava (Slovakia). In February 2018 I had a pleasure to work with Domin’s card index hosted in Bratislava. I had gathered from there the data about distribution of endemic plant taxa in flora of the Ukrainian Carpathians. These data are important source of information for further biogeographical studies since they allow evaluating and simulating the patterns of spatial distribution. In total I elaborated and digitized 336 cards for 55 endemic plant taxa distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians and built the database containing 1674 entries with implication of the main phytogeographical units. In this index I had also found cited localities from some regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians that have never been mentioned in Ukrainian papers before and generally were overlooked by scientists. In particular, Heracleum sphondylium subsp. transsilvanicum was rediscovered for Marmarosh and Svydovets (before it was cited only for Chornohora and Chyvchyny), Koeleria macrantha subsp. transsilvanica was rediscovered for Marmarosh (there were no details about distribution of this taxon in theUkrainian Carpathians before), Noccaea dacica was rediscovered for Cornohora (before it was cited only for Svydovets), Oxytropis carpatica was rediscovered for Chorhohora, Scorzoneroides pseudotaraxaci was rediscovered for Chornohora and Gryniava (before it was cited only for Svydovets), and Trifolium sarosiense was rediscovered for Chornohora and Svydovets (there were no details about distribution of this taxon in the Ukrainian Carpathians before). Hence, in the Ukrainian Carpathians occur at least 76 endemic and subendemic taxa, and three more taxa ( Dianthus spiculifolius , Leucanthemopsis alpina and Trisetum macrotrichum ) are most probably absent in this region.