B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 36. 2005 (Budapest, 2005)

Szollát, György; Standovár, Tibor: Botanical values of the Öreg-hegy and Juhász-halom near Csomád

Studia bot. hung. 36, pp. 165-183, 2005 BOTANICAL VALUES OF THE ÖREG-HEGY AND JUHÁSZ-HALOM NEAR CSOMÁD GY. SZOLLÁT

1 and T. STANDOVÁR

2 'Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum H-1476 Budapest, Pf. 222, Hungary; szollat@nhmus.hu 2

Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Loránd Eötvös University of Sciences H-l 117 Budapest, Pázmány sétány 1/c, Hungary; standy@ludens.elte.hu This paper presents the results of studies on the flora and vegetation of the dry grassland remnants of the Öreg-hegy and Juhász-halom near Csornád. Detailed floristical survey showed that there are 1-1 strictly protected and 25-13 protected plant species at these two locations, respectively. In addition to the presence of several protected plant species, these sites are of great conservation value, because they represent important elements in a network of more or less degraded, but still semi-natural grassland patches of the original steppe woodland vegetation embedded in the intensively used landscape around Budapest. Key words: Csornád, flora, Juhász-halom, Öreg-hegy, vegetation INTRODUCTION Large urban agglomerations usually lack natural values. This is true for the large area surrounding Budapest, where - except for the mountains - very little is left from the semi-natural vegetation. What is left usually occurs in the form of isolated patches in the sea of arable fields, or - in slightly better cases - of plantations of non-native trees. One of the largest and most significant such area lies west of Csornád and extends westwards, towards Göd. Botanical values of this area are hardly known compared with the well studied Somlyó-hegy near Fót (FEKETE and KOVÁCS 1982, SEREGÉLYES 1990) located only a few kilometres to the south. However, its greatest zoological attraction has been known for long. The largest population of the strictly protected butterfly (Plebejus sephirus) - feeding on Astragalus excapus - occurs in the sandy grasslands of the Csornád-Göd region (BÁLINT 2001). Study area The study area - the Öreg-hegy and the Juhász-halom - lies at the western periphery of the Gödöllői-dombság (Gödöllő Hills) surrounded by the deposits of the Pesti-hordaléksík (Pest Plain) (PÉCSI et al. 1958, KARÁTSON 1997). Öreg-hegy (Öreg Hill, 250 m) is the northwestward extension of the Oldal-hegy (Oldal Hill,