MEDICINAL PLANTS OF BULGARIA

Abstract

Bulgaria is a small country in Southeast Europe, but its geographic location, vari ed relief and climate contribute to great floristic diversity. The medicinal plants are part of it . They represent 23.2% of the country's flora. The aim of the present paper is to present information about the full composition of the medicinal plants of Bulgarian flora as well as characteristics of the systematic structure and classification according to biological type, life form, floristic geolements, period of flowering, and ecological groups. The complete list of medicinal plants in Bulgaria was compiled on the basis of the Medicinal Plants Act, extensive literature analysis and own researches. The life forms were identified according to Raunkiaer and for floral elements the classification of Walter was used. The ecological forms were identified according to Flora of Republic Bulgaria . As a result of the conducted surveys it was found that there are 950 medicinal species of vascular plants in the country belonging to 468 genera and 126 families. The richest family containing medicinal plants was Rosaceae (98 specie). The most medicinal plants exist ed among perennial herbaceous plants (539 species). Geoelements with a European component were predominated (408 species). The most plants bloom from June to August (121 species). The ecological structure of medicinal plants shows that mesophytes (435 species); heliophytes (545 species) and thermophylous plants (607 species) were dominated. The results of the study include also a detailed information about the national and international conservation importance of the analyzed species. 65 species were included in the Red Book of Bulgaria. There were 81 species protected by the Biodiversity Law. Among the medicinal plants are 16 Balkan and 4 Bulgarian endemic spesies. The international significance of these plants was defined by the fact that 33 of species were under protection by different international conventions. The ratio between the biological types, the predominant geoelements and the life forms shows is typical for the temperate continental climate zone and the flora of our country. The total percentage of protected species (7%) is not high, which is positive because most species are subject to use by the local population, the pharmaceutical and perfumery industry.