Place names

The FloraRO Data Repository stores various data regarding Romanian native plant species. This data has been aggregated from a number of publications cited in the Sources section of this web site. The Repository is centered around plant species-placename(s) (S/P) pairs, and contains the following categories of data: detailed chorological information using 1-tier (county) or 3-tier (province, region, area) geographical references, including protected areas; species taxonomy, morphology, ecology; endemic or relict status; herbarium information (where available); European or global distribution; authors, original comments, publications, editors.

The queries listed on this page enable access to all categories of stored data. Since a single query cannot display all columns for lack of page space, several are available to access them all. The output of queries can be filtered and sorted using multiple criteria, generating data subsets which become more focused and relevant.

If you are new to this site, we recommend you start with Q_31 or Q_34 (Q_35), whose geography is more straightforward. Q_32 is more complex, but also contains a significantly larger amount of data. But before using queries, it might be useful to read through the Help pages.

N.B.: Sensitive plant data (e.g. placenames of endangered plant species et al.) is available only to authenticated users.

Queries

Geography
  21.   FloraRO Areas by (Province; County) Query
  22.   Counties and distances Query
  23.   Localities of Romania Query
Species-placenames
  31.   Species by (Province) Query
  32.   Species by (Province; Region; Area) Query
  33.   Species by (County; Protected area) Query
  34.   Species by (County; Area) Query
  35.   Species by (County; Access point) Query
Protected Areas
  51.   Protected areas by (County) Query
Statistics
  61.   Placenames by Species Query

Queries 31-35 deliver a comprehensive picture of geographical distribution of the species, history of their presence or subsequent lack thereof (due to the degradation and/or destruction of specific areas, mainly a consequence of human activity), and the historical or contemporary sources that cite them - papers, books or the World Wide Web. As this is work in progress, the Data Repository will hopefully grow over time and include an increasing number of sources.

One of the main goals of this project is to enable a thorough overview of the Romanian native flora and its present on-site status. At the time of its publication, The Flora of Romania (FMR) was more or less such a data repository - in printed form. Today, the World Wide Web enables instant, worldwide data input and access - consequently, a project such as this should integrate this very important but outdated opus as well as most books, papers et al. published during the last 5-6 decades (i.e. 1960-2015) since the Flora of Romania was published, as well as current data.

Obviously, to achieve this goal a significant amount of work is necessary, quite probably involving more than the 2-3 people that are now contributing to the FloraRO's Data Repository, especially since its present data volume is estimated at only 3-5 % of its optimal value. One can only hope that this will change for the better as time goes by, just as one should hope that the conservation status and well-being of Romanian native Flora will do the same - even if the present and perceived trends point towards the opposite.

Data volumes

As of December 2019, the Data Repository of FloraRO contains a number of  32,811 species-placenames pairs for  2,748 species,  3,520 taxons from the Romanian Flora (accepted names),  7,412 taxon names (accepted names and synonyms),  119 sources of various types (books, papers, World Wide Web citations etc.),  3,284 access points,  6,452 placenames; a list of  1,255 protected areas (PN, PNa, N2K & RZ) which represent more than 95% of the total; the Index of plant families and genuses of Flora Republicii Populare/Socialiste România botany encyclopedia ( 1,233 entries); and  3,273 (tagged) titles of botanical Romanian and foreign publications.

Activity logbook

2016-2017 Website functionality update and data input.

2018_01 Placename data update.
2018_03 Placename data added.
2018_04 Placename data added.
2018_11 Placename data added.

2019_01 Placename data added.
2019_03 Taxonomy functionality & data added.
2019_07-11 Taxonomy data added.
2019_12 Website functionality update (WIP).