B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 32. 2001 (Budapest, 2001)

Bauer, Norbert: Vascular flora of the hill Strázsa-hegy and its vicinity (Pilis Mts, Hungary)

BOTANICAL RESEARCH OF STRÁZSA-HEGY AND ITS SURROUNDINGS Botanical research in the area may be traced back for a long time. In 1736 an English traveller, Richard Pococke, who was interested also in botany, probably travelled through the area when he went around the Pilis Mts via the Tata-Esztergom-Visegrád road (RÓZSA and NAGY 1997). Nevertheless, he did not specify exact collecting places in his floristical notes. Pál Kitaibel was the first Hungarian botanist who recorded several floristical data in his diaries referring to this place. He visited the area on October 3, 1804. On his way marked by Esztergom-Dorog-Leányvár his recorded plants were mainly from the flora of the sandy areas, and the species list provides evidence of disturbance even at that time (GOMBOCZ 1945). The botanical merits of Strázsa-hegy have long attracted the attention of botanists from the neighbourhood. Ignác Gründl, from Dorog, and Sándor Feichtinger, a physician from Esztergom, were actively botanizing in the region from the middle of the 19th century. GRÜNDL (1863, 1865, 1868) has published floristical data in the columns of the Österreichische Botanische Zeitschrift mainly from his favourite hill, the Pilis, as well as from the area of the Börzsöny, Gerecse and from Esztergom'

s neighbourhood. The first botanical publication of Feichtinger, in which data can be found on the flora of Dorog and Esztergom, was published in 1864, after 20 years work. It appeared in the publication of the Meetings of the Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists (MOT), entitled "Floristical data from Esztergom County" (FEICHTINGER 1864, 1865). The valuable herbarium collections of Gründl and Feichtinger - which today are preserved at the University of Szeged, and in the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, - are very rich in specimens also referring area. Sheets of these herbaria and the connecting documentation - like those of Kitaibel, Keiner, Sadler, Frank and Gründl - were introduced and discussed by Feichtinger in his monograph (FEICHTINGER 1899). As part of his assessment, he published numerous concrete places of occurrence. To support the richness of the area, localities of rarer plant species are named, such as Strázsa-hegy (78 cases), Sátorkőpuszta (21 cases) and Dorog (83 cases). BORBÁS (1872) published data only from some marginal areas (e.g. Esztergom) of the region but Strázsa-hegy and its vicinity apparently was not subject of this study. A remarkable botanist of the beginning of the 20th century, Gyula Gáyer, had also made floristical research here. He communicated taxonomic observations and highlighted the hybrids and varieties of Pulsatilla, especially rich in different forms in the area (GAYER 1909). The hybrid named Pulsatilla mixta shown by