Second addition to the vascular plant flora of the Utrish strict nature reserve, Northwest Caucasus

Abstract

In 2021, fieldwork was started to create a new inventory of the flora of the Utrish Strict Nature Reserve. The territory of the reserve was covered by a network of floristic transects in which the locations of vascular plants were recorded. In total, 2465 records of 615 species from 330 geographical points were made. Information on species findings is presented in the published dataset "Occurrences of vascular plants in Utrish Reserve, Russia" on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) portal. Among the encountered species, 35 are new findings for the territory of the Utrish Reserve. Apera interrupta turned out to be new for the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea. Among the species listed in the third edition of the Red Data Book of the Krasnodarsky Krai, Astragalus circassicus, Euphorbia subtilis, Neottia ovata and Cladium martii were found in the reserve for the first time. Novel species in the territories adjoined to the reserve in 2021, were mainly weeds, as well as plants originating from food waste. Their presence is a natural trace of past intensive recreational use in the flora of the territory. According to our preliminary assessment of literary sources and floristic data from 2021, the flora of the reserve in its new boundaries has 958 species of vascular plants. The nationally red-listed Cladium martii deserves special attention, since the discovered population is the largest among the currently known populations on the Caucasian Black Sea coast.