Unique flora in Retezat Mountains

The Retezat Mountains National Park, founded in 1935 and considered by Greenpeace the last intact forest landscape of the Europe, has over 38,000 hectares. A third of this surface is represented by virgin forests and wild areas unaffected by human intervention. Retezat Mountains is famous for the floral diversity, accommodating nearly 1190 species of higher plants of over 3450 known in Romania. The existence here of more than a third of Romania's flora is one of the reasons for which was declared a National Park. To these are added about the same number of inferior species.

Very important for plant conservation in Retezat are over 90 endemic taxa of the 127-400 total endemic taxa accepted by different authors for Romania. The first reported endemic plant is Draba dorneri, discovered in 1858 by Heuffel. Here can be found 130 plants rare or vulnerable listed on the "Red List of higher plants in Romania" published in 1994.

Draba dorneri

In florogenetic terms Retezat Mountains are the genetic center for the genus Hieracium, which includes 257 taxa here, some endemic as Hieracium borzae, Hieracium nigrilacus, and that for the genus Poa, which includes 31 taxa. Also, a whole series of taxa and infra-taxa have their place here, like Barbarea lepuznica, Centaurea pseudophrygia ratezatensis, Oxytropis jacquinii retezatensis, Hypochoeris maculata var. carpatica, Festuca rupicola var. retezatensis.

Image from here

Unique plants from Romania (Part 7)

Draba is a large genus of cruciferous plants, commonly known as Whitlow-grasses. There are over 300 species. Flămânzica or drobiţa lui Dorner, Draba dorneri Heuff., is the first discovered Romanian endemic plant (Heuffel, 1858). Alpine–subalpine species, Draba dorneri is a glacial relict.

Spermatophyta
Angiospermae
Dicotyledoneae
Dialypetale
Roeadales
Cruciferae
Genus: Draba
Species: Draba dorneri


The plant is 3-15 cm high, almost woody at base, with branches finished in rosettes of leaves. The strain is unfolied or very rarely with 1-2 twigs without leaves. The leaves are oblong, attenuated to base, acute, entire or with 1-2 "teeth" at peak. Flowers are small, white. The fruit is elliptical, rounded at both ends, 4.5-6.7 mm long, 2-3 mm wide. The plant is near extincted, strictly protected (Council of Europe 1979) and grows in a small area (400 sqm!) in Retezat Mountains National Park.