THE BULGARIAN FLORA ONLINE
THE BULGARIAN FLORA ONLINE
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Pirin Quillwort
Isoetes pirinica D.F. Brunton & D. Ivanova.
The species is PROTECTED in Bulgaria by the Biodiversity Act - it is prohibited to "picking, collecting, cutting, uprooting or any other manner of destruction of specimens in their natural range in the wild", as well as "possession, keeping, movement, transport, export, trade and offering for sale or exchange of specimens taken in the wild". These bans apply to "all stages of life of the plants"1.
Listed in the Red Data Book of Bulgaria to the category "Endangered"2.
Isoetes pirinica is a perennial aquatic, submerged herb.
Stem short, tuber-like, 2-lobed, 0.5–1.5(3) cm in diameter.
Leaves rigid, erect, spreading or slightly curved outwards, dark green upwards, whitish at base, 4–10(15) cm long and 1.5–3 mm thick, linear-subulate, tapering at apex; leaf-base flattened and spathulate, with wide membranous margins, abruptly narrowing above sporangium.
Heterosporous.
Spores ripening July–September3.
On sandy-silty or stony bottoms at the periphery of high-mountain lakes, beneath relatively shallow water layer (from a few centimetres to a few metres). The species inhabit oligotrophic and mesotrophic waters. Populations are numerous, relatively well-developed, but very fragmented. At some places individuals are very numerous and very dense, forming communities, but in small areas. On the periphery of some lakes individuals grow in small groups or solitary together with other plant species4.
Pirin Mts, between 2050 до 2550 m altitude5.
Bulgaria6.
1 Bulgarian Biodiversity Act in english.
2 Daniella Ivanova. 2015. In: Red Data Book of the Republic of Bulgaria. Volume 1 - Plants & Fungi.
3 Daniella Ivanova. 2015. In: Red Data Book of the Republic of Bulgaria. Volume 1 - Plants & Fungi.
4 Brunton D. F., D. Ivanova & P. C. Sokoloff. 2021. Pirin Quillwort, Isoetes pirinica sp. nov. (Isoetaceae), a new endemic lycophyte from Bulgaria. FERN GAZ. 21(6): 240-2 2. 2021.
5 Brunton D. F., D. Ivanova & P. C. Sokoloff. 2021. Pirin Quillwort, Isoetes pirinica sp. nov. (Isoetaceae), a new endemic lycophyte from Bulgaria. FERN GAZ. 21(6): 240-2 2. 2021.
6 Brunton D. F., D. Ivanova & P. C. Sokoloff. 2021. Pirin Quillwort, Isoetes pirinica sp. nov. (Isoetaceae), a new endemic lycophyte from Bulgaria. FERN GAZ. 21(6): 240-2 2. 2021.