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Minuartia graminifolia (Ard.) Jav. ssp. hungarica Jav.
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This delicate saxicole plant is a narrow endemic species in the Cerna Mountains area, Caras-Severin county. It makes part of a species with a very disjunct range in the mountains of central-southern Europe and some isolated populations evolved into distinct subspecies. The typical ssp. graminifolia s.str. occurs in central-eastern Alps, ssp. rosani occurs in southern Italy (this includes Sicily), ssp. clandestina (Port.) Mattf. in Montenegro, north-western Greece and northern Albania and was recently discovered in Italy - Monte Cario in the Apennines, ssp. hungarica Jav. in south-west Romania in two locations.A recent synthesis of the species can be found in Conti, F. (2003) - Minuartia graminifolia (Caryophyllaceae) a south-east European species, in Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 143(4): 419-432 where you will see that our subspecies is recognized and needed to be lectotypified. The plant is inconspicuous and modest and at the time we made the photographs we had no idea about its identity, though we knew and looked forward for the species in the area (but we had a very different idea about how it would look like - see here the large flowers of the typical ssp. graminifolia from the Alps, here of ssp. rosani or here of ssp. clandestina from Italy).In their valuable synthesis about the endemic plants of Romania, [Dihoru, G., Parvu, C. (1987) - Endemic Plants in Flora of Romania (in Romanian). Ed. Ceres, Bucharest] they mention three localities 1.'Mount Arjana 1500m asl, near Globurau' 2.'between Plugova and Mehadia 1450m asl (locco classico) and 3.'Bobot, 25 kms away from Baile Herculane'. We believe that actually the locations 1 and 2 are the very same and both represent the 'locco classico' of the species.The plant was seen by us bertween 2010-2011 as abundant on the flanks of Mount Biliana, south of Arjana on massive limestones, as you can see below. In a recent report - Groza, Gh., Goia, I., Mataca, S. (2006) - Researches upon the flora and vegetation of the parcels with Banat Black Pine from the Domogled-Valea Cernei National Park (unpublished and not signed but available as a .pdf document on the internet on p.15 is stated that "The species is represented by a few individuals on 'Medvedului peak and on Tamna' - new localities for the chorology of this species and a primary estimation would assess that no more than 50 cushions are present (that means no more than 100 individuals). The eventual exploration of the row of clearings along the Mehedinti Mountains crest would reveal also other individuals. Probably the population reported represents 50 % from the total of the species at the country level". Not the extraordinary news expected but any small population newly discovered for such a rare taxon is a great chance to maintain it alive. Congratulations to the passioned authors of the report, who spent some long months doing research in the area. Unfortunately one of them is not any more with us today. Lacu Mountain west of Arjana, a small population, Caras-Severin county, Cerna Mountains, July 2008. dr. Alexandru Badarau, alexandru@transsilvanica.com
The habitat of the species at the place - calcareous stones with well known species for such habitats, the first to be noticed being Seseli rigidum and Festuca pallens. Minuartia graminifolia ssp. hungarica can be seen in the upper right corner of the photograph - the yellowish green tufts.
Muntele Lacu, between Globurau and Arjana crest, Cerna Mountains, Caras-Severin county, 8th of July 2010. dr. Alexandru Badarau, alexandru@transsilvanica.net
Biliana peak, abundant, not far from Arjana crest, Cerna Mountains, Caras-Severin county, 9th of July 2010. dr. Alexandru Badarau, alexandru@transsilvanica.net
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