New Geophyte Taxa Described From Turkey At Last Decade

Turkey has a rich flora due to its geographical location, climate, topographic features and being on the junction of three phytogeographical regions. This rich flora consists of approximately 10.000 ferns and flowering plants. Since 1/3 of these species are endemic species, our flora is especially important. Approximately 900 geophyte taxa growing in our country naturally (plants with bulbs, tubers and rhizomes) contribute significantly to this richness. With the increasing number of floristic studies, both the number of geophytes and other group plants increased year by year. New taxa that have been identified until the end of 2000 have been published in the supplemental volume of Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands. In this study, we prepared a list of geophytes taxa that have been identified from our country since 2001 according to their families and genera and also included their short descriptions.


Introduction
Turkey has a rich flora and the origin of many species since the geographical location, climate and topographical features of Anatolia provides optimal conditions.These properties also allowed the diversity of plant species of Anatolia.Geophytes (plants with bulbs, tubers and rhizomes) establish a significant part of this plant richness.Geophytes stay under the ground most of the year as bulbs, tubers and rhizomes, therefore they are known by this name which also means underground plants.Most of the geophytes form beautiful and showy flowers during the spring and some of them during the autumn.They attract attention since spring flowering species herald the coming of spring and autumn flowering species announce that the weather is getting cold and winter is approaching, and are also important as ornamental plants.For example: Galanthus (snowdrop), Tulipa (tulip), Fritillaria, Hyacinthus (hyacinth), Lilium (lily), Ornithogalum (star-of-bethlehem flower), Muscari (common grape hyacinth), Colchicum (meadow saffron), Crocus (crocus) are among them.
Most of the geophytes are found in the class Moncotyledonae and a few of them are found in the class Dicotyledones.In this study we only investigated the geophytes species belonging to the class Monocotyledones.Families that are rich in number of geophytes species are: Amaryllidaceae, Liliaceae, Iridaceae, Orchidaceae, Araceae and the newly identified species belong to the genera of these families.
The Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands have been published between 1965 and 1988 as 10 volumes (9 volumes+1 supplement).However, many taxa from Turkey that are new for the scientific community have been identified in the eventual years and the 2 nd supplemental volume of the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands has been written by Turkish Botanists and published in 2000.Native and foreign scientists continue to publish new records for our country and also new taxa for the world of science and these efforts still continue.Since taxa that have been published before and during 2000 are found in the supplemental volumes of Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, the subject of this study is only the geophytes taxa that have been newly identified between 2001 and 2011.Brief information on these species including the names, authors of these species according to their families and genera, where and when they are published, the localities where type specimens are collected from and the herbariums that these specimens are kept, their flowering times, protection status are also given.With this study, we aimed to aid the person(s) who will be in charge of the preparation of the 3 rd supplemental volume of Turkish flora.As you can see from the information provided for these new taxa, they are narrowly-distributed taxa which are also endemic for our country.Therefore their protection and the measures that should be taken for their protection are very important.It should be noted that countries with rich plant biodiversity has the responsibility to protect this richness sustainably.

Conclusion
The distribution of geophyte taxa that have been identified from Turkey during the last decade according to their families and genera: As you can see from the table, 67 geophyte taxa belonging to 19 genera of the "Class Monocotyledons" have been published since 2001.All of these taxa are endemic for Turkey.In the last 10 years, averages of 5 new taxes, including at least 3 species are found.These taxes are from Antalya region with 12 species, from Muğla region with 8 species and from Konya region with 7 species.Antalya is neighbor with Konya city in the northeast and neighbor with Muğla city in the west and, all these three cities are located in the Mediterranean Basin.These data prove once again that Mediterranean Basin is an important gene center for geophyte plants.Possibilities of cultivation, production as ornamental plants and usage in landscaping should be researched for the new discovered geophyte species which are in the natural flora of Turkey and easily grown under suitable conditions.

Table 1 :
The distribution of geophyte taxa that have been identified from Turkey during the last decade according to their families and genera