Flora

The name of the term comes from the name of the ancient Roman goddess of flowers and spring flowering Flora ( lat. Flora ).

The word “flora” in the meaning “plant population” was first used by the Polish botanist Michal Boim (1614–1659) in Flora Sinensis (“Flora of China”), published in Vienna in 1656 .

For the second time in this sense, the word “flora” was used by the great Swedish naturalist Karl Linnaeus (1707–1778) in his work Flora Lapponica (Flora Lapland), published in Amsterdam in 1737 ^[2] . It was this book that became the first in the genre of "flora" in its modern sense - that is, in the genre of survey work devoted to the plant world of a particular territory. Flora Lapponica is a review of the plant world of Lapland and contains a detailed description of 534 species of plants and fungi, of which about a hundred were first described. The principle of constructing this book (introductory chapters with information about the described area and the history of studying its nature; a section with a description of plant species, including for each species - information about its morphology, characteristics of growth, taxonomic data, and brief information about the use of the plant; at the end of the book - a list of references) turned out to be compositionally perfect and began to be used in other similar works ^[3] .

• geographical analysis - the division of flora according to geographical distribution; identification of the proportion of endemic ;
• genetic analysis (from other Greek. γένεσις “origin, origin”) - the division of flora according to the criteria of geographical origin and history of settlement;
• botanical and geographical analysis - the establishment of relations of this flora with other flora;
• Ecological and phytocenological analysis - the division of flora according to the conditions of growth, by type of vegetation;
• age analysis - the division of flora into progressive (young in appearance), conservative and relict elements;
• analysis of the systematic structure - a comparative analysis of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of various systematic groups that make up this flora.

All methods of flora analysis are based on its preliminary inventory, that is, the identification of its species and generic composition.

Flora of Specialized Groups

The totality of plant taxa , covering certain groups of plants, have the corresponding specialized names:

• Algoflora - algae flora ^[1] ;
• Brioflora - bryophyte flora ^[1] ;
• Dendroflora , or arboriflora - flora of woody plants .

Three more terms appeared before these groups of organisms ceased to refer to plants:

• Lichenoflora - lichen flora;
• Mycoflora - the flora of mushrooms ;
• Mixoflora - flora of myxomycetes (mucus) .

Territory Flora

From the point of view of the nature of the territories under consideration, there are:

• Earth flora as a whole ;
• Flora of continents (continents) and their parts;
• Flora of individual natural formations ( islands , peninsulas , mountain systems );
• Flora of countries, regions, states and other administrative entities.

Flora by the criterion of external conditions

According to the criterion of the external conditions of the considered territories, they distinguish:

• Flora of chernozem and other soil types;
• Flora of swamps and other special areas of the earth's surface;
• Flora of rivers, lakes and other fresh water bodies;
• Flora of the seas and oceans.

Indigenous and Advent Flora

Considering the specific modern flora from the point of view of species origin, indigenous plants (from lat. Aborigenes ← ab origene “from the beginning”), - quite a long time living in the area under consideration, and adventitious (from lat. Adventicius “alien”, “alien” are distinguished ), or alien , or alien plants - previously absent here, and later brought here (either as a result of human activity, or through any natural agents) ^{[4] [5]} . The totality of species of native plants of a certain locality is called native flora , and the totality of species of adventive plants is called the adventive flora of this locality ^[4] .

Different authors use different criteria for classifying plants as adventitious flora: in the narrow sense, unstable and random components of the flora are attributed to it, that is, those whose naturalization process is not completed; in a broad sense, all plants that appeared in a given area after a person settled here belong to the adventive flora, including naturalized plants - that is, those that managed to acclimatize in a given area and take a strong position in the local vegetation cover ^{[4] [5]} . In some territories, adventive (alien) plants occupy a significant, and sometimes dominant, position, while sometimes hindering the reproduction of some indigenous plants. Examples of such situations include the wide distribution of prickly pears in Australia , southern Europe and the Middle East , as well as the active distribution in the Argentinean pampas of European and European origin. Some weeds spread widely throughout the world with developed agriculture, clogging crops ^[5] .

Types of flora according to Krasnov

In 1888, in his work “The History of the Development of the Flora of the Southern Part of the Eastern Tien Shan,” the Russian botanist Andrei Nikolaevich Krasnov (1862–1914 / 1915) proposed the following division of the flora of the territories into parts:

F = ƒ ₁ + ƒ ₂ + ƒ ₃ ;

Where

• F - a set of species now growing in a given territory;
• ƒ ₁ - unchanged or slightly changed species that lived here until the Quaternary ;
• ƒ ₂ - species that are the result of changes in tertiary forms under the influence of conditions that took place in a given territory;
• ƒ ₃ - species that migrated to this territory in a later era.

Flora for which F is close to ƒ ₁ is called relict . Such flora is characteristic of the Canary Islands , China , Japan .

Flora for which F is close to ƒ ₂ is called transformational . Such flora is characteristic, for example, for Central Asia .

Flora, for which F is close to ƒ ₃ , is called migratory . Such flora is characteristic of Western Europe .

Flora by Use Criteria

To denote the totality of cultivated plants grown in a particular territory, the expression "cultural flora" is used.

Sometimes the expression “health flora” is also found - a metaphor used to refer to the totality of species of medicinal plants that are common in a particular territory or in general on Earth ^[6] .

A comparative analysis of the flora of various territories is the basis for the floristic zoning of the globe, that is, the creation of a "floristic system" - a system for dividing the globe into natural floristic units.

• Vegetation
• Microflora
• Microflora of man
• Fauna

• Flora (a set of plant species) / A.I. Tolmachev // Ulyanovsk - Frankfort. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1977. - ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vols.] / Ch. Ed. A. M. Prokhorov ; 1969-1978, vol. 27).
• The history of flora and vegetation of Eurasia . - L. , 1972.
• Mayorov S.R. , Bochkin V.D. , Nasimovich Yu.A. , Scherbakov A.V. Adventive flora of Moscow and the Moscow region / Mosk. state University of Ch. nerd garden them. N.V. Tsitsina RAS. - M .: Partnership of scientific publications of KMK, 2012. - 412 p. - 200 copies. - ISBN 978-5-87317-880-3 .
• Markelova, N. R. Dynamics of the composition and structure of the adventive flora of the Tver region: 03.00.05: dis. ... cand. biol. sciences. - M. , 2004. - Ch. 1: The main approaches to the analysis of adventitious flora.
• Takhtadzhyan A. L. Floristic division of land and ocean // Plant Life: 6 vol . - M .: Enlightenment, 1974. - T. 1: Introduction. Bacteria and actinomycetes / ed. N. A. Krasilnikova and A. A. Uranova. - S. 117-153.
• Flora, a set of plants // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Beketov A.N. Plant Geography // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.