Adil GÜNER, Vehbi ESER - optima

Posters
126
EXOTIC FLORA OF CONTINENTAL PORTUGAL – A NEW
ASSESSMENT
João Domingues de ALMEIDA 1 & Helena FREITAS 11
Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology. University of Coimbra. 3000 Coimbra.
Portuga. jddalmeida@hotmail.com; hfreitas@ci.uc.pt
We present a new assessment of the exotic flora of continental Portugal, five years after our
last study. In 1999, we have assessed 500 exotic species of vascular plants (invasive or more
or less naturalised). From 1999 to 2004, 57 new plant species records were added (11.4 %
more), attaining a total of 557 taxa (including, as in precedent works, species, subspecies and
some hybrids), belonging to 112 families (Almeida & Freitas, 2006). At the present time, we
have a list of 633 taxa (13.6 % more than our previous work, and more than 17 % of the total
number of taxa of the Portuguese flora), included in 120 different families.
Keywords: Exotic species, flora, continental Portugal.
VARIABILITY IN PRICKLY SOW THISTLE (SONCHUS ASPER (L.)
HILL) FROM WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN REGION
José A. MEJIAS 1 , Mariano GARCÍA DEL REY, José L. SILVA
Seville University, Department of Plant Biology and Ecology, Apdo. 1095, 41080 Seville, Spain
1
jmejias@us.es
We studied morphological variability of Sonchus asper in Western Mediterranean region by
means of a multivariate analysis using a score of characters, in order to clarify possible
taxonomic differentiations. Most biologically congruent grouping deals with anthers length,
which show a clear bimodal frequency distribution. These two groups range from 0.80 to 2.40
mm (mode 1.30) and from 2.41 to 4.00 mm (mode 3.10) and show differences in florets size
which are determinant of unlikely attractiveness during anthesis and, probably, denotes
differences in reproductive systems. Floral morphotypes show a clear geographic pattern, big
anther group being restricted to three areas: South France (Provence and Côte d’Azur coast
area), South Italy – Sicily, and Atlas – Rif Ranges in North Africa; but plants from these areas
do not share similar vegetative morphotypes. Chromosome number 2n = 18 is common to the
whole S. asper range but plants fom Atlas – Rif show a differentiated karyotype with regard
to the common karyological characteristic of the group.
Possible taxonomic implications of found variability are discussed. Obviously, big anthers
plants should be segregated as differentiated taxa, but a detailed genealogic analysis is
required to clarify if all of them form a monophy-letic group or, on the contrary, they
constitute a grouping of convergent independent evolutionary lines.
Keywords: cluster analysis, idiogrammatic formula, morphometrics, taxonomy
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