Richness of Wild Flowering Plants and Ferns in Northern Cyprus

Abstract

Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, is situated just outside of the Gulf of 
 Iskenderun, south of Turkey. Its topography can be summarized as ‘The Coastal Belt, Northern Range, 
 Southern Range and Central plain’. The island has been divided into 8 phytogeographical divisions by 
 Meikle in 1977. The whole checklist of the vascular plants taxa, occurring in Northern Cyprus, has been 
 prepared. The checklist comprises of 1564 wild taxa (species and subspecies) belonging to various 
 families. Taxonomic status of the taxa has been updated according to two databases as follows ‘The 
 Plants Names’ and ‘International Plant Name Index (IPNI)’. Cyprus is a hotspot in Mediterranean basin 
 and its number of the endemic taxa are 143; 73 of them occurring as endemic in Northern Cyprus and 
 15 of them are distributed only in the area of Northern Cyprus. The list of the vascular plants is given 
 as tables and the endemic taxa is listed as a separate table in the article.