Welcome

This website is designed to help you better understand taxa of the German flora that are critical for identification. To this end, we offer high-resolution scans of selected herbarium specimens and, in many cases, detailed images of relevant characters to help you check your identification results. In addition, the respective taxa and their most important characteristics are briefly described.

The systematics of the vascular plants are based on the Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland (Jäger 2011, Müller et al. 2016, 2021). Distribution information is essentially based on the Florenliste von Deutschland (Buttler et al. 2012 ff., Hand et al. 2020), whereby the categories "tendentially established" and "not established" have been merged. Furthermore, the Verbreitungsatlas der Farn- und Blütenpflanzen Deutschlands (Netzwerk Phytodiversität Deutschland & Bundesamt für Naturschutz 2013) and regional floras have been considered.

Systematics and nomenclature of the stoneworts follow the treatment of the Characeae at European level (Schubert et al. 2024).

If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us at: bestikri@senckenberg.de

Please cite the website as follows:

Dressler, S., Gregor, T., Hellwig, F. H., Korsch, H., Wesche, K., Wesenberg, J. & Ritz, C. M. 2015 ff. Taxonomically critical taxa of the Flora of Germany. Herbarium Senckenbergianum Frankfurt/Main, Görlitz & Herbarium Haussknecht Jena. [online] https://bestikri.senckenberg.de

A descriptive presentation of this website can be found in: Dressler & al. 2017, Pl. Syst. Evol. 303: 1109-1113.

We would like to thank the German Research Foundation (DR 437/3-1, RI 2090/1-1, HE 2252/11-1) as well as the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) (FKZ 3519810700) for financial support.

Cited literature

Buttler, K. P., Thieme, M. & Mitarbeiter 2012 ff. Florenliste von Deutschland - Gefäßpflanzen. Version 4 ff. Frankfurt am Main. [online] ( current version )

Hand, R., Thieme M. & Mitarbeiter 2020ff. Florenliste von Deutschland (Gefäßpflanzen), begründet von Karl Peter Buttler, Version 11 ff. [online] ( current version )

Jäger, E. (Ed.) 2011. Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland. Gefäßpflanzen: Grundband. 20th ed. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg.

Jäger, E., Müller, F., Ritz, C. M., Welk, E., Wesche, K. (Eds.) 2013. Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland. Gefäßpflanzen: Atlasband 12th ed. Springer Spektrum, Heidelberg.

Müller, F., Ritz, C. M., Welk, E. & Wesche, K. (eds.). 2016. Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland. Gefäßpflanzen: Kritischer Ergänzungsband. 11th ed. Springer Spektrum, Heidelberg.

Müller, F., Ritz, C., Welk, E. & Wesche, K. (eds.). 2021. Rothmaler, Exkursionsflora von Deutschland. Gefäßpflanzen: Grundband. 22nd ed. Springer Spektrum, Heidelberg.

Netzwerk Phytodiversität Deutschland & Bundesamt für Naturschutz (eds.) 2013. Verbreitungsatlas der Farn- und Blütenpflanzen Deutschlands. Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster.

Schubert, H., Blindow, I., Nat, E., Korsch, H., Gregor, T., Denys, L., Stewart, N., van de Weyer, K. & Casanova, M. T. (eds.). 2024. Charophytes of Europe. Cham, Switzerland, 1144 S.