The Flowers of Romania

The Romanian flora is among the most interesting in Eastern Europe. The variety of habitats found in the country combined with the continental climate allow about 2400 species of plants to grow. There are 3 main regions that gather most of Romanian flora:

- The Carpathian Mountains with altitudes of 2500m where you can encounter a lot of endemic and subendemic flowers like the Carpathian Bellflower (Campanula carpatica), the King's Rock Pink (Dianthus callizonus), Artemisia petrosa and White Hellebore (Veratrum album). The alpine meadows hold an especially rich flora, including the Hepatica transsilvanica, plus Dianthus spiculifolius, Campanula patula (Spreading Bellflower), Trollius europaeus (Globeflower), Gentiana lutea (Yellow Gentian), Viola biflora (Yellow Wood-violet), Aster alpinus, Leontopodium alpinum and Rhododendron kotschyi, Digitalis grandiflora (Large Yellow Foxglove), Saxifraga corymbosa, Pedicularis verticillata (Whorled Lousewort), Gentiana verna (Spring Gentian), Campanula transsilvanica, Primula minima (Alpine Primrose) and Senecio integrifolius,Viola alpina (Alpine Pansy) and Viola dacica.

- The flora of Dobrogea region is very rich as it concentrates 1911 species on 16000 km square being comparable to the plant diversity of the Mediterranean islands Corsica and Crete this represents more than 50% of Romanian flora. This region represents a complex synthesis of the plant biogeographic areas as it is situated at the southern limit of the Central European and some Crimean species, at the northern limit of the Mediteranean-Balkanic - Pontic species and at the western limit of some Asiatic ones. The complex structure of the flora and its specificity, beside the Euro-Asiatic species (25%), is conferred by the high proportion of southern - Balcanic, Pontic - Mediterranean, Submediterranean species (25%) and by the Continental, steppe species (17%). The European and Central European (12%) and Circumboreal (4%) species are less frequent and occur on higher altitudes. All these features confer to Dobrogea the character of synthesis of southeast European flora and not only. A flower hunting trip to Dobrogea is more or less equivalent to a much larger visit to central Europe, northern Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Crimean Mountains and the steppes of Ukraine and Central Asia.

- The Danube Delta is the extreme Est of the European Union, with its 4,152 sq. km is the second largest Delta in Europe after Volga Delta. The total area of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve is about 580,000ha, more than half of which embraces what is commonly called the "Danube Delta". The remaining area is shared between the upstream Danube flood plain and the lagoon complex - Razelm Sinoe. The water plants and moor plants are abundant here so if you are intrerested in species like Water Chestnut (Trapa natans), Water ferns (Salvinia natans), Yellow Waterlilly (Nuphar lutea), White Waterlilly (Nymphaea alba) and many species of orchids than the Danube Delta is a must see.