Origin and Age of the Mountain Flora of the Dinara, Troglav and Kamešnica

The investigation of the high mountain flora in the Dinara, Troglav and Kamesnica, i. e. the central part of the chain of the Dinarides, was carried out to establish its origin and age. The study was restricted to the alpine associations within climatic region of the distribution of Pinus mugo and submountainous Fagus silvática forests; there is no timberline and the high mountain vegetation in this region is caused by local climate, orographic or anthropogenic conditions. In the study the author brings out the results he obtained in trying to establish the main centres of development of the flora of the quoted Mountains and then its age. Some basic facts and data about the origin of the Dinara Mountains and about the general history of the flora of the wider area of the Balkan peninsula from the Tertiary are briefly stated. The stress is put on the general significance of palaeobotanical and particularly pallynologic research for the knowledge of florogenetic relations. In the absence of fossil proofs the plants classified according to their present actual spread on the earth and good knowledge of systematic phylogenetic relations of individual taxa were in this study the only real basis in determining the genesis of these flora elements. Selected members of the mountain flora in the region were earlier examined in detail (Volarić-Mršić 1972) as regards their geographic distribution, phytocenological connection and phylogenetic relations within the genus or section and their variability. Using the geographic systematic method and starting primarily from the flora geoelement whose classification was done earlier (Volarić-Mršić 1972) results of the research are: most of the plants investigated originate from the region of European mountain system (79 taxa), many have their origin in the Dinara Mountains (51 taxa, most of them belonging to the Dinaric geoelement), whilst 23 developed in South-eastern Europe. A small number (12) are from Central Asia and only one from America. As to the age of the high mountain flora of the Dinara, Troglav and Kamesnica mountains, the author came to the conclusion that it consists mostly of autochthonous tertiary taxa, the additions from later periods being in minority. Also it is stressed that the history of the Dinara mountains flora might have started not before the main folding period of this mountain system, and one should bear in mind that the Dinara Mountains attained their final hight in the Pleistocene