Towards a checklist of the Italian gypsophilous vascular flora.

The strict relationship between plants and particular types of substrate has long been known to botanists and plant ecologists who have dealt with this issue. The peculiar flora growing on Italian gypsum substrates has been underlined since the nineteenth century (1, 2, 3). The concept of plant gypsophily can be defined as the exclusiveness or marked preference for living on gypsum outcropping rocks. Thus, only those plant species which show preference, or even exclusivity, for gypsum substrates, should be classified as gypsophilous (4). The main aim of this research has been to provide a checklist of the Italian gypsophilous flora. The study was made possible through international collabor…