Occurrence of the rare plant Sternbergia colchiciflora in an urban environment

Abstract

In this paper, we report a remarkable population of the rare plant Sternbergia colchiciflora found along a busy road section in the downtown of county seat Veszprém (W-Hungary). The population contains at least 7000 individuals and spreads across fifteen grassy traffic islands. Regarding the position of individuals, their relative distance from the road/sidewalk within the traffic islands differed significantly from a hypothetical uniform distribution, with higher number of individuals situated close to the island edges than expected by chance. Besides this rare bulbous plant, several other dry grassland specialist plant species were also found in these habitat patches, e.g., Astragalus austriacus, Festuca rupicola, Filipendula vulgaris, Muscari neglectum, Petrorhagia saxifraga, Potentilla arenaria, Ranunculus illyricus, Salvia nemorosa, Sanguisorba minor, Teucrium chamaedrys, Thesium linophyllon, Verbascum phoeniceum and Vinca herbacea. The origin of these dry grassland plants in this highly disturbed urban environment is uncertain; possibly, they were introduced ca. 15 years ago in the course of earthworks during the construction of the road. Recent management (frequent and motorized lawn mowing) seems to favor the Sternbergia colchiciflora, while the habitat is currently not directly threatened. Unfortunately, the potential for local conservation appears to be highly limited.

Long-term organogenic callus cultivation of Ranunculus illyricus L.: a blueprint for sustainable ex situ conservation of the species in urban greenery

“…Another interesting example is the population of the rare plant Sternbergia colchicifora found along a busy road section in the downtown of the county seat Veszprém (Hungary). Within this anthropogenic habitat of traffic islands, in the vicinity of roads and sidewalks where S. colchicifora occurs, other rare plants (e.g., R. illyricus ) [ 54 ] have been found. It shows that urban green sites could be a valuable way of ex situ protection in the case of this species.…”

Orchids of Azerbaijani Cemeteries

“…We studied burial grounds (Azerbaijani: m@zarlıq, hereafter cemeteries) regardless of their spatial dimension, position within settlements, or presence of built facilities. We surveyed 96 Azerbaijani cemeteries (Figure 1, Table A1) during 2018 (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30) May by Molnár V., Löki, Mizsei and Süveges, and 28 June-4 July by Molnár V. and Szabó) and 2019 (29 April-6 May by Verbeeck, Duijnhouwer, Segers and Bobocea) and (31 May-6 June by Verbeeck, Duijnhouwer and Bradeanu). Most cemeteries were visited only once (90 and 3 cemeteries in May 2018 and in April 2019, respectively), but three cemeteries were visited in both years.…”

“…Recently, conservation professionals have recognized that some of the anthropogenically influenced or even human-made habitats, such as abandoned mines and industrial sites [6][7][8], road verges [9][10][11], tree plantations [12][13][14], river dikes [15], burial mounds [16], and urban habitats [17,18], play significant roles in conserving biodiversity. During the last decades, it has become increasingly evident that cemeteries also play an important role in maintaining biodiversity [19].…”