History of Floristic and Vegetation Research

Abstract

The first mentions of plant species in the Retezat Mountains were made by J. C. Baumgarten (Enumeration stirpium Magno Trassilvanie principatui, I–III. Vindobonae, 1816), after which a plethora of botanists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries carried out research and published plants found in these mountains. In order to highlight the contribution of each botanist to the knowledge of the Retezat flora, we nominated the new and rare species published. Likewise, we cited some botanists who collected plants from Retezat and deposited them in the Herbarium of the University of Cluj, without publishing them (V. Soran). The first synthetic floristic work on the crystalline Retezat was achieved in the middle of the last century [Nyárady (Flora și vegetația munților Retezat. Acad. Române, București, 1958)]; a few years later the floristic inventory was completed with the flora of the Retezat limestone area [Csűrös et al. (Contrib Bot, Cluj, 3:131–150, 1962)]. Subsequently, the identification of new taxa in this massif was discontinuous until 1990.