Flora of Kyrgyzstan

Inventories of plant diversity are still of a great importance for the Central Asian countries, which flora is as much rich as peculiar. According to the latest estimations, the flora of Kyrgyzstan numbers ca. 4000 species, of which many (no exact figure available) are endemic to this country. Some of these endemics have a rather narrow distribution, being confined to a few mountain ranges or even gorges. The flora of Kyrgyzstan is still very incompletely explored, and the existing treatments of many plant groups are much outdated and therefore highly unsatisfactory. Some genera are identified as most promising in discoveries, and the relevant new treatments had been started in herbarium collections and in field.

The genus Cousinia Cass., one of the largest in Asteraceae, is represented in Kyrgyzstan by 70-80 species, many of them being endemic. Some of these species were established on the basis of single, very few or scattered collections and have not been properly described in comparison with their relatives. Many endemics have never been illustrated. This led to frequent misidentifications and misunderstanding of species limits and distribution areas. Experts on this genus are very few in the world.

The genera Hieracium L. and Pilosella Hill are highly complicated because of apomixis. Although rather poorly represented in Kyrgyzstan (ca 20 species are estimated), these genera have never been studied specially in this area.

The genus Cotoneaster Medic. is peculiar of the combination of apomixis and phenotypic plasticity. The number of its species in Kyrgyzstan is about 20-25.

Since the distribution of many species in Kyrgyzstan is imperfectly known, numerous taxa appear new to the country or the parts thereof. Endemics of Kyrgyzstan are not well represented in collections outside this country, and new field studies are desirable.