An annotated checklist of the vascular flora of the Maltese islands

Abstract

At present, there is no centralized database of all the plant species pertaining to the Maltese Islands. The scope of this work was to compile plant records from published and unpublished sources and review the nomenclature of all records. The final result was to produce an updated checklist of the vascular flora of the Maltese Islands. The list is subdivided into Lycopodiophyta, Polypodiophyta, Cycadophyta, Pinophyta, Gnetophyta and Magnoliophyta, is arranged in systematic order. It includes 1306 specific and infraspecific taxa both native and naturalised, of which, 22 species are endemic to the Maltese Islands. The specific localities where each species was recorded was given when available. The most abundant families, in terms of species, were the Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae and the most species-rich genera were Trifolium, Medicago and Euphorbia. Dominant lifeforms were the therophytes (45.4%) as is the case with other Mediterranean islands, and the hemicryptophytes (22.7%). Throughout this study, the flora of the Maltese Islands were also analysed in the context of the Mediterranean flora. The findings of this study were compared to similar data from other Mediterranean Islands, particularly Sicily and Menorca. The main difference which was observed between the islands of Malta and other Mediterranean Islands is the low number of endemic species in the former. This is mainly related to the high population density in the Maltese Islands. The present knowledge of the flora of the Maltese Islands is attributable to the work of a relatively small number of botanists, very few of whom worked simultaneously. Spurts in the number of recorded species were traced to the peak activity of individual botanists.