Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Climate
- 3 Edaphic factors
- 4 The geological history of the present European flora
- 5 The atlantic and oceanic elements
- 6 The thermophilic element
- 7 The boreal element
- 8 The arctic, alpine and montane elements
- 9 Endemic, disjunct and centric distribution patterns
- 10 Anthropochorous plants
- Appendix I Calculation of climatic parameters for comparison with plant distributional data
- Appendix II The Northern European species of Flora Europaea with indications of their status and climatic correlations
- Appendix III Arctic species of vascular plants
- Appendix IV Endemic species of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens
- Appendix V Extra-European disjunctions – bryophytes and lichens
- References
- Index
7 - The boreal element
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Climate
- 3 Edaphic factors
- 4 The geological history of the present European flora
- 5 The atlantic and oceanic elements
- 6 The thermophilic element
- 7 The boreal element
- 8 The arctic, alpine and montane elements
- 9 Endemic, disjunct and centric distribution patterns
- 10 Anthropochorous plants
- Appendix I Calculation of climatic parameters for comparison with plant distributional data
- Appendix II The Northern European species of Flora Europaea with indications of their status and climatic correlations
- Appendix III Arctic species of vascular plants
- Appendix IV Endemic species of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens
- Appendix V Extra-European disjunctions – bryophytes and lichens
- References
- Index
Summary
The boreal element in Europe is a northeastern element centred on the great conifer formation, the taiga, of northern Russia and Siberia. Boreal species form a series of equiformal progressive areas in the sense of Hultán (1937), from species with a very restricted distribution in northern Russia and perhaps penetrating into northern Finland to species with a much wider distribution, reaching the northern parts of the British Isles and the higher mountains of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans. It is typically a forest element. Only a few species extend north of the arctic forest-limit or much above the altitudinal timber-line.
The distribution patterns show that boreal species tend to be absent from areas with mild winters along the southwestern lowlands of Europe. Such species were called ‘southwest coast avoiders’ by Conolly & Dahl (1970) (see also Dahl 1951). They are able to tolerate high summer temperatures as shown by their occurrence in the lowlands of eastern and Central Europe. In this respect they differ from the true arcticalpine plants. However, in the southwest they are restricted to higher elevations.
Climatic correlations
Many of the boreal species have distribution patterns that are the inverse of the atlantic species. For example, the horizontal distributions of Picea abie and Ilex aquifolium overlap only in the former Yugoslavia, but there Picea grows in the mountains whereas Ilex is restricted to lower elevations. Another example from Norway, pointed out by Blytt (1869), is that only in a restricted area along the Sognefjord does the atlantic species Digitalis purpurea occur in the same area as the boreal Aconitum septentrionale.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Phytogeography of Northern EuropeBritish Isles, Fennoscandia, and Adjacent Areas, pp. 81 - 92Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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