About Flora Greece

The majority of the tourists who visit Greece is drawn there by the crystalline waters of the seas and the splendid vestiges of its ancient culture, and probably know little about the variety and the abundance of the flora of this country, which counts an astonishing number of species-more than 6,000-plus subspecies and varieties. In proportion to its size, Greece has more species of flowers than does any other European country or the United States. The plenteousness of Hellenic flora is the result of a number of factors, first among which the particular geographical position of the country. Together with Greece's climatic conditions, it permitted the land to receive contributions from other nearby floras, above all those of central Europe and Anatolia.

Following the lowering of the level of the sea, relics of the flora of the Tertiary period that survived the glaciations of the Quaternary succeeded in gradually migrating from their areas of origin over the bridge that the glaciers had created and that united different lands. Before the last inundation of the Mediterranean Sea, species of eastern origin had reached Europe through Thrace and other areas of the central and southern Aegean regions.
That the flora of Greece and of the Balkan area in general evolved from the ancient Paleozoic flora is confirmed by the presence of numerous endemic or paleo-endemic species now found only in small colonies. Examples include some species that came from the Balkans and Asia Minor, like Ebenus cretica, whose center of distribution is localized in Asia, or Jancaea heldreichii, a member of the family Gesneriaceae endemic to Mount Olympus and of a genus that groups almost exclusively tropical and subtropical plants.

Elements originating in Africa, the Caucasus region, and the northern Balkan peninsula but which did not spread to the western regions of Europe became established in Greece following the disappearance of the primigenial forests, which gave way to arid soils favorable to the growth of xerophytic Mediterranean plants.

These factors established Greece became a crossroads in the migrations of different floras, a sort of botanical refugee center in which many species native to central Europe (including many Alpine species) as wail as Mediterranean, Balkan. Near Eastern and Northern African species all settled and spread.

Another important aid peculiar fact about Greek flora is that it counts an extremely high number of endemic species about 800. Some of these are relics of ancient Tertiary flora which in other places was destroyed by the glaciations but found suitable conditions for survival in Greece; nevertheless, these archaic forms alone are not sufficient to explain the high endemism, since many of the species certainly belong to more recent geological eras and many of which originated in the places in which they were first identified.

The changes in the level and the surface area of the Mediterranean Sea resulted in the fragmentation of a great number of land masses, mountain chains, and islands, and many animal and plant species were consequently isolated at one time or another during geological history. These conditions created new habitats populated by species and subspecies typical of these environments and thus favored the evolution of extremely diversified local populations which, despite their common origin, progressively diverged the ones from the others, specialized, and gave rise to a many new endemic species. These species-which often create problems of classification, as do the many species and subspecies now evolving and not yet well defined genetically, with hybrids and local varieties that are sometimes difficult to distinguish - justify the conclusion that on Greece the factors that contributed to creating new species operated more actively than in any other European country.