BOTANIC
Various geographic characteristics, climate variety,
caused by geographical differences, being a natural bridge
between three continents, caused Anatolia Peninsula to
have a rarely encountered vegetation in the world. While
vegetation number, present in all along Europe is a total
of 12.000, this figure is 9.000 in our country.
Our
country is superior than Europe according to vegetation
variety. Because our country is not only superior than
Europe in connection with endemic plants which grow only a
certain region or whose homeland is a certain region in
the world but also one of the a few regions of the world.
While endemic plant number of Europe is 2.750 this number
equals to 3.000 in our country. Endemic plant number is
only 600 in Antalya. Total plant number of England is
2.000. (9.000 in our country). It is known that one of the
Mediterranean states, Spain as well as Former Yugoslavia
have 500 endemic plants each. It is known that Bulgaria
has 3.650, Greece 5.000, Cyprus 2.000, Syria - Lebanon
3.500, Iraq 4.000, Iran 8.000, France 4.500, Germany
2.500, Italy 5.600, Spain 5.000, Romania, 3.400, England
2.000, Hungry 2.214, Island 377 and Norway 1.715 plants on
the basis of total plant number.
3 city of our country
which have most endemic plants are Antalya with 578, Konya
with 478 and İçel with 366. As you can see city of Antalya
is richer than countries such as Spain and Former
Yugoslavia. It can easily be estimated that city of İçel
is richer than most of the European countries in
connection with Endemic (and Non - Endemic) plant
richness. If Antalya and İçel are thought together, it can
be easily found that this two city become unrivalled
against European countries with their plant potential.
Europe's
most endemic plant owning country except Turkey, Greece
has 800 endemic plants. Rival country, Italy's endemic
plant number is 712. Endemic plant number of Japan is
2.000, USA's 4.036 and Switzerland's is 1. As it can be
considered that cities of our country can be compared with
countries of Europe but Europe continent is poorer than
Turkey as a total.
One of the most important
reason for plant richness of Turkey is being Anatolia a
shelter for plants during ice age. Today Turkey is at the
intersection point of 3 different plant area which is not
present in either of the European country. These plant
area are Mediterranean Plant Area (includes Mediterranean
and Aegean regions), European - Siberia Plant Area
(includes Black Sea and Marmara region), Iran - Turan
Plant Area (includes Central Anatolia and Easter Anatolia
regions.). |