Domokos Tamás szerk.: Pro Natura. A Dél-Tiszántúl természeti értékei (Békéscsaba, Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum, 1999)

THE FLORA OF THE SOUTHERN TRANS-TISZA REGION The picture outlined by Vince Borbás (1881), the well-known botanist of the last century, about the flora at the end of the last century of the Southern Trans-Tisza Region in his work titled "The flora of Békés County" clearly documented the increasing human-caused transformations of nature. The ancient landscape and original character of the Great Hungarian Plain changed gradually. Before the river regulation activities a North-South oriented chain of marshes and bogs covered the Trans-Tisza plain. The permanently water influenced areas of the Kis and Nagy Sárrét (Lesser and Greater Mud plains) were shaped by the Körös Rivers and the Berettyó River, while the Southern parts of the Trans-Tisza Region was shaped by the braided channel systems of the River Maros. At the areas of lower elevation, which were permanently influenced and often flooded by water, the original flora was made up of submerged aquatic plants, reed marshes, reed stands, sedges and marsh-meadows, which were replaced by willow swamps at the slightly higher elevations. Since the river regulations and draining the area covered by these aquatic plant associations considerably decreased, and are mostly replaced by agricultural fields at present. The locations of the former flower carpeted meadows, banks and watersides with sedge and sweet-grass vegetation, open water surfaces with white water lilies and yellow water lilies are indicated today by hard meadow soil and patches of peat soil. The higher, water-free parts were occupied by oak-ash-elm gallery forests and wooded steppe vegetation. After the last glaciation of the Ice Age on the higher, water free elevations colourful and species-rich loess grasslands were formed. This plant association was the dominant vegetation type till the advent of historic times. The majority of the Mat-grass stands on the Békés-Csanádi loess ridge were ploughed by the end of the nineteenth century. Only the professional or amateur botanists can recognise some incidentally surviving patches of the original flora, or discover the rare relics of the disappeared flora. The stands of Transylvanian Adonis and Drooping Clary represent these ancient flora elements. Salty woodland clearings form the transition zone towards the extensive alkali steppes, which are quite similar to the ones found in the Hortobágy. The majority of protected areas is made up by the alkali steppes. The water regulation works, partly carried out at the end of the last century and still going on nowadays, has created new conditions for both the human population and the biota of this region.