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

Barina, Zoltán, Harmos, Krisztián; Schmotzer, András: Orobanche cernua in Hungary

The taxonomic status of Orobanche cernua and Orobanche cumana The Hungarian flora works (SOÓ 1951, 1968, Soó and KÁRPÁTI 1968, SIMON 1992, 2000) uniformly treat Orobanche cumana Wallr. and O. cernua Loefl. conspecific (or in a combination as O. cernua Loefl. var. cumana Beck.). Most of the national flora works in Europe mention only Orobanche cernua (PIGNATTI 1982, HESS etal. 1980) or 0. cumana (JOSIFOVIC 1974, SÄVULESCU 1961, TlJTIN et al. 1972), treating them as synonyms; SHISHKIN (1958) however distinguished the two species. The use of names can be in correlation with the fact that there are different species in different countries, and only in a few of them do O. cumana and O. cernua occur together. BECK (1890) has already distinguished five taxa within the Orobanche cernua Loefl. complex, one of them is "typica = O. cernua Loefling" and one "(Orobanche) cumana WALLROTH". Nevertheless, the distinction of these two Orobanche species has not become generally accepted until nowadays in Europe. Yet some recent publications treat O. cernua and O. cumana as closely related but separate species (KREUTZ 1995, PUJADAS-SALVÀ and VELASCO 2000, ROMÁN etal. 2004). As shown by several authors these taxa can be separated both morphologically (SHISHKIN 1958, PUJADAS-SALVÀ and VELASCO 2000) and genetically (KATZIR et al. 1996, PÁRAN et al. 1997, ROMÁN et al. 2004). Distribution of Orobanche cernua According to KREUTZ ( 1995) Orobanche cernua is distributed in the Western Mediterranean region of Europe and in the eastern part of the continent (Turkey, Bulgaria, East-Romania, Moldavia, East-Ukraine, etc.). O. cumana has a similar range, with more (adventive) populations in Central Europe and in the Balkan peninsula. While O. cumana has been known as a weed of sunflower cultures in Hungary for more than 50 years (BOROS 1950), O. cernua has not been recognised until now. HORVÁTH (1996, 1999) had reported Orobanche cernua, O. cumana and their hybrid (!) from Hungary, all from sunflower cultures, but he may have misidentified the two species (mentioned dense inflorescence [!] and nearly uncurved corolla of Orobanche cumana, cf. KREUTZ 1995, PUJADAS-SALVÀ and VELASCO 2000). Up to now 13 populations of O. cernua became known from the lowlands of Hungary (Table 1).