B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 38. 2007 (Budapest, 2007)

Papp, Beáta: Contributions to the bryophyte flora of Eastern Turkey

Studia bot. bung. 38, pp. 71-78, 2007 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BRYOPHYTE FLORA OF EASTERN TURKEY B. PAPP Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum H-1476 Budapest, Pf. 222, Hungary;pappbea@bot.nhmus.hu Documentation of a bryologically quite unexplored area in eastern Turkey revealed 68 taxa (3 hepatics and 65 mosses) of which 5 species are reported for the first time in the A5 grid square of Turkey, 9 species in the B9, and 45 taxa in the BIO grid square. Key words: Bryophytes, eastern Turkey, new records INTRODUCTION The first summaries of the bryophyte flora of Turkey were published by HENDERSON (1961) and HENDERSON and PRENTICE (1969). in these papers 15 distributional grid squares were established for Turkey, which roughly coincide with the major floristic districts of the country. This grid system is highly accepted by Turkish botanists and is actively used in their recent publications. Also containing an account on the Turkish bryoflora, a comprehensive work about the bryophytes of southwestern Asia was published by FREY and KÜRSCHNER (1991). More recent checklists for Turkey are published by UYAR and ÇETIN (2004) and KÜRSCHNER and ERDAG (2005). Due to the increasing interest in bryophyte research in the last 10 years in Turkey several other papers were published by Turkish bryologists. The bryological investigations are mainly concentrated on the northern, western, and southwestern part of Turkey, while large areas in the eastern part remained quite unexplored (TOWNSEND 2005). Eastern Turkey (a continuation of East Anatolia) is a mountainous area of upland character, with elevations of the plateau reaching 1,700 m. Many of the high mountains of this region are of limestone or dolomite, but some of the landmark high mountains are of Quaternary volcanic origin (Mt Ararat, 5,165 m, Mt Siiphan, 4,434 m).