Karyological data of the native woody flora of Tuscany: state-of-art and first data analysis

Tuscany, with 268 taxa, is the Italian region with the highest number of native trees and shrubs (Roma-Marzio & al. 2015) and the second region in terms of percentage of the total vascular flora karyologically investigated (Bedini & al. 2012). Nonetheless, to date there is no specific study on the karyological information regarding the regional dendroflora. In order to summarize the karyological information about the woody regional flora, a survey of the chromosome counts made on plants of regional and Italian provenance, stored in the online database “Chrobase.it” (Bedini & al. 2010 onwards) was performed. Our results show that only for 27 taxa chromosome counts were made on plants of Tuscan provenance (≈ 10% of the total regional woody flora), for 82 (≈ 30%) counts were made on plants of Italian, extra-Tuscan, provenance and for 263 (≈ 97%) counts were made on plants of extra-Italian provenance. For the following 8 taxa chromosome number is totally unknown: Anthyllis hermanniae subsp. corsica Brullo & Giusso; Juniperus del- toides R. P. Adams; Quercus × morisii Borzí; Q. × pseudosuber Santi; Rosa montana Chaix; R. pouzinii Tratt.; Rubus acheruntinus Ten; Tamarix dalmatica B.R. Baum. Based on counts on plants of Tuscan provenance, the most investigated genera are Cistus (4 out of 6 taxa were investigated) and Genista (all 5 woody species were investigated).