Flora of Turkey
[5] Further east is the Anatolian plateau, a largely treeless area of plains and river basins at an average altitude of 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
Immediately around the large Lake Tuz and other saline areas, saltmarsh plants grow, and beyond this is a sharp divide, with the flora being dominated by members of the families Chenopodiaceae and Plumbaginaceae.
Since Darwin we know that geographic isolation between islands or separated mountains is an important means of speciation, leading to high spatial diversity.
Approaching the southern and western coasts, the climate turns more and more Mediterranean, with mild but very rainy winters and dry, hot summers.
On the high mountains, harsh climatic conditions persist all the year round and, as of 2019[update], there are glaciers in Turkey, for example on Mount Ararat.
Saline soils are quite common in the driest parts of central Anatolia: and also the Aras valley between Kağızman and Armenia is full of impressive salt outlets, some pouring directly out of the mountains and thus resembling snow patches from a distance.
Depending on environmental conditions a big variety of life forms evolved, ranging from tiny annuals to small woody and thorny bushes.
Nearly all of its different sections consists of clusters of closely related species whose determination is one of the hardest tasks in a closer study of the Anatolian flora.
Most Verbascum species are protected against water loss and hungry cattle by a dense cover of tree-shaped micro hairs.
Centaurea species rarely have woolly hairs, but in defence against heavy grazing developed thorny phyllaries, or evolved to have no visible stem or a very short one.
Turkey is divided into two botanical areas: The Pontic mountain range along the north Anatolian coast is a more or less continuous barrier against humid air from the Black Sea, causing high precipitation on the northern slopes of the Pontus all year.
In the lower forest zone often Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) prevails, frequently intermingled with Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa).
The Taurus Mountains form the southern edge of the central Anatolian Plateau and are already very influenced by the Mediterranean, with a lot of snow in winter, but dry and warm summers.
Climax forests are formed by Black Pine, Cilician Fir (Abies cilicica) and Lebanon Cedar (Cedrus libani).
Such conditions favour the growth of hard-leaved evergreen trees such as Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera) and Turkish Pine (Pinus brutia).
But due to massive forest destruction hills and slopes in coastal West and South Anatolia are nowadays mostly covered with macchie.
As local endemics take a long time to evolve, we also have to compare the history of the central and north European mountains with the Anatolian ones.
During each of the glacial periods the former were covered by thick shields of permanent ice, which destroyed most pre-glacial endemism and hindered neo-endemics from forming.
Only less glaciated, peripheral areas, the so-called “massifs de refuge”, offered suitable conditions for the survival of local endemics during glacial periods.
[34][page needed] There is a national biodiversity action plan to 2028,[35] and an IUCN SSC Turkey Plant Red List Authority.
