Various geographic characteristics, climate variety, caused by
geographical differences, being a natural bridge between three
continents, caused Anatolia Peninsula to have a rarely encountered
vegetation in the world. While vegetation number, present in all
along Europe is a total of 12.000, this figure is 9.000 in our
country.
 Our
country is superior than Europe according to vegetation variety.
Because our country is not only superior than Europe in connection
with endemic plants which grow only a certain region or whose
homeland is a certain region in the world but also one of the a few
regions of the world. While endemic plant number of Europe is 2.750
this number equals to 3.000 in our country. Endemic plant number is
only 600 in Antalya. Total plant number of England is 2.000. (9.000
in our country). It is known that one of the Mediterranean states,
Spain as well as Former Yugoslavia have 500 endemic plants each. It
is known that Bulgaria has 3.650, Greece 5.000, Cyprus 2.000, Syria
- Lebanon 3.500, Iraq 4.000, Iran 8.000, France 4.500, Germany
2.500, Italy 5.600, Spain 5.000, Romania, 3.400, England 2.000,
Hungry 2.214, Island 377 and Norway 1.715 plants on the basis of
total plant number.
3 city of our country which have most endemic plants are Antalya
with 578, Konya with 478 and İçel with 366. As you can see city of
Antalya is richer than countries such as Spain and Former
Yugoslavia. It can easily be estimated that city of İçel is richer
than most of the European countries in connection with Endemic (and
Non - Endemic) plant richness. If Antalya and İçel are thought
together, it can be easily found that this two city become
unrivalled against European countries with their plant potential.
 Europe's
most endemic plant owning country except Turkey, Greece has 800
endemic plants. Rival country, Italy's endemic plant number is 712.
Endemic plant number of Japan is 2.000, USA's 4.036 and
Switzerland's is 1. As it can be considered that cities of our
country can be compared with countries of Europe but Europe
continent is poorer than Turkey as a total.
One of the most important reason for plant richness of Turkey is
being Anatolia a shelter for plants during ice age. Today Turkey is
at the intersection point of 3 different plant area which is not
present in either of the European country. These plant area are
Mediterranean Plant Area (includes Mediterranean and Aegean regions),
European - Siberia Plant Area (includes Black Sea and Marmara
region), Iran - Turan Plant Area (includes Central Anatolia and
Easter Anatolia regions.). |
