Flora del Parco Nazionale della Majella 1

Twenty five years after it was officially established, the Majella National Park is publishing the first exhaustive list of its flora. This volume on the Park’s flora conceived with the layman in mind is a symbolic tribute to all the botanical explorers who have gathered data on the plants of the Majella, starting in the 16th century with Luigi Anguillara, first curator of the Padua Botanical Garden, and, above all, the renowned Neapolitan botanist Michele Tenore (and his local collaborators, including Giuseppe De Angelis from Roccamorice and Pasquale Gravina from Pettorano sul Gizio) who attributed particular importance to the Sacred Mountain in his monumental Flora Napolitana. The Majella is the locus classicus (the site where they were first described) of numerous species endemic to the Central Apennines. The great number of plant species present is the expression of a vast and complex biological richness, direct consequence of the wide range of climates and geomorphologies represented in the Park, together with its fortunate geographic position at the transition between the Mediterranean and Temperate bioclimates and long history of plant migrations. The remarkable mosaic of plant communities creates a variegated and unique landscape, together with the transformations produced by man’s activities which in some cases have created new biological and cultural equilibriums. The principal merit for this fascinating and complex volume goes to my friend and botanical colleague, Prof. Fabio Conti, who took his first steps as researcher right here on the Majella long before the Park was established and who was accompanied in his research by his collaborator Fabrizio Bartolucci. The Park Authority’s botanists (myself and Giampiero Ciaschetti) also collaborated with regard to the Park’s flora. Finally, special thanks is due to the expert ethnobotanist and historian of agriculture, Aurelio Manzi, whose research on the wild ancestors of cultivated plants provided much historical information on the current distribution of numerous species. A guide to the flora of the Park of undoubted scientific value to help enthusiasts discover the beauties of our area.