L. Hably szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 21. 1989 (Budapest, 1989)

Mészáros, Sándor: Comparison and relations of the Hungarian and the Mongolian flora

Species of group II with true root system were probably evolved from group I as a result of adaptation to more dry habitats. Among the Hungarian species, C. pannonica and C. biennis were originated during of a SW migration in the Pleistocene, the former one reaching our territories through the steppe of Betpak-Dala in Kazahstan, the latter from the Caucasus, turning round the Caspean and the Black seas through the Balkans. The rest of the Mongolian species of group II like C. crocea, C. nana, C. flexuosa and C. bungei remained all of Central and Eastern Asian distribution. On the other hand, C. bungei is one of the ancestral forms of the species C. tectorum, occurring in both countries. The youngest species of Crepis, belonging to group III were originated from the species of group II as a result of climatic and topographical changes during the Pliocene and the Pleistocene on the regions of the Turanian Lowlands, the Iran Plateaux, and the Eastern Mediterranean regions. These six species (C. capillaris, C. nicaeënsis, C. pulchra, C. rhoeadifolia, C. setosa and C. pofymorpha) reached Hungary therefore not as Continental or European elements, but as Mediterranean ones, from Southern direction. Summarizing the relations of the Crepis species we can state that though we have, at the moment, only two species in common with the Mongolian region (C. praemorsa, C. tectorum), the connections according to ancestral relations are wider than that: on one hand, the ancient ancestral species of group I were equally originated from Central Asia, the environs of the Altai and the Tiensan Mts. (C. paludosa, C. mollis) and reached Central Europe migrating towards the West, through Scandinavia and, on the other hand, our youngest species of Crepis treated as Mediterranean elements within the flora are also the results of a flora migration started from Central Asia, through a South-Western route. This migration of plants starting from Central Asia could be observed, naturally enough, not only for the species of the genus Crepis only. The fact of plant migrations from here was already mentioned by ENGLER (1879), demonstrating the main routes on maps, differentiating movements dated at the beginning and the end of the Tertiary period as well as migrations during the Ice Age. The South-Western route must have brought to Hungary many species of Continental and Mediterranean floristical elements, while the Western route (through Scandinavia) possibly brought several elements considered European today on the basis of their recent areas. The study of phyletic relations and plant migrations for several genera could add up to a more precise delineation of the Neogene floristical history, as well as a completion of vegetation-historical studies from a phytogenetical approach.