Annals of the University of Craiova - Agriculture, Montanology, Cadastre Series
Abstract
The present paper reunites the morphological and ecological description of Scorzonera plant species present in the Al. Beldie Herbarium from Marin Drăcea National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry (INCDS) in Bucharest. Furthermore, this article organizes the herbarium exemplars based on species, harvest year, the place from where they were taken and the specialist that has gathered them. The first part of the article starts with a short description of the herbarium and its specific, followed by presenting the material and method used in elaborating the paper. As such, the material is represented by the 83 plates containing exemplars of some Scorzonera species. A very important aspect which must be specified is the fact that the herbarium has a significant number of rare endangered or endemic specimens. One example, the protect species Scorzonerarosea, is present in the herbarium with 26 plates that were mainly gathered in the year 1936 by Al. Beldie himself. Another rare species, Scorzonera hispanica, is represented in 16 plates from within the herbarium and is of a high interest as it is the oldest species of the genre, being harvested in the year 1794. Beside the description of the gathered Scorzonera species, the present paper presents the gathering map of the species present in the herbarium at an European level, together with analyzing the gathering periods of these species. Some of the oldest gathered species are also presented in this article. The paper ends with some conclusions regarding the Scorzonera species’ analysis and exemplars present in the herbarium, while briefly presenting their most novel aspects and characteristics.
