Syntaxonomic Overview of the Vascular Plant Communities of Central Europe: Forest and Scrub Formations

Abstract

The following overview uses, where possible, the names of the higher level vegetation units of the Central Europe vascular flora that are most widely recognised. The syntaxonomic treatment primarily follows the system proposed by Rennwald (2000) for Germany which bases on major phytosociological works of Oberdorfer et al. (1987–1992), Pott (1995), Dierschke (1996 et seqq.) and others. Additional information was taken from synsystematic surveys compiled for Austria (Mucina et al. 1993; Willner and Grabherr 2007) and the Czech Republic (Chytrý 2007 et seqq.), as well as in some cases specific studies that are cited in the text. Here, the names of the authors of the syntaxa will be given (= the first scientifically valid description following the International Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature, ICPN; Weber et al. 2001). These names were not checked as part of this book, but follow e.g. Berg et al. (2004). The English names of the vegetation classes were in most cases aligned with those used by Rodwell et al. (2002) in an overview of European vegetation units, though often in a shortened version.