L. Lőkös szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 24. 1993 (Budapest, 1993)

Hably, Lilla: Egerian macroflora from the Andornaktálya sandpit (Hungary)

Number of specimens is used by the method, considering dominant types. Abundance is indicated by numerals. 1 most frequent elements (more than 101 specimens), 2 frequent element (11-100 specimens), 3 rare elements (2-10 specimens), 4 single specimen. A table is made for each locality, showing each element type by a number determined by the abundance. This table has been prepared for the Andornaktálya flora. This method gives good results for localities yielding more than 100 specimens. Locality abede fghiklmnop Andornaktálya 12 .3 3 2 The locality is characterized considering the most frequent and the frequent elements; it is an a b e i m locality, containing cinnamomoid, lauroid, myricoid, quercoid, and carpinoid elements. GREGOR (1982) provides the characterization of the groups a to x, indicating their evergreen or deciduous nature. Applying this method to the Egerien forest of Andornaktálya the following characters are determined: a = cinnamomoid = evergreen b = lauroid = evergreen e = myricoid = evergreen (including Platanus neptuni, Palaeocarya oerbergensis) i = quercoid = deciduous and evergreen m = carpinoid = deciduous We suggest, that the zonal vegetation at Andornaktálya had mostly likely be formed by a laurophylous, evergreen, subtropical forest, mixed with a few deciduous, but thermophylous species. PALAEOCLIMATE The climate is unambiguously determined by the floral composition of this zonal vegetation. The specimens are from a forest vegetation far from the waterside, with a few exceptions. An uncertain Myrica specimen and Spirematospermum wetzleri indicate swamp vegetation only, but these are insignificant compared to the number of species and specimens of the mesophytic, subtropical forest. There is a large amount of Ulmus pyramidalis; it is not a member of the mesophytic forest, but lived in the riparian vegetation. It is the single Arctotertiary element of some abundance in the flora. Its mass occurrence, as in other Egerian localities, is not due to climate deterioration (since palaeotropical species lived under optimal conditions), but these lived as members of the so-called intrazonal communities outside zonal communities. The evaluation based on species composition has been completed by an interpretation based on leaf statistics, considering leaf size only. DOLPH and DILCIIER (1980) studied interrelationships between leaf parameters and climate on recent material; they concluded that only leaf size shows any direct dependence on climate. We calculated leaf size by the equation of CAIN and CASTRO (1959): A = 2/3 (L xW) where A = leaf size (surface area), L = leaf length, W = leaf width.