The interactive electronic book is based on the previously published print edition, with an expanded composition of cultivated plants, refined identification keys, extended species descriptions and bug fixes. Data on the habitats included in Natura 2000 have been added to the species descriptions. Quick search filters within the considered taxa have also been added. The information on the species is supplemented with data on the plant formations according to Bondev (1991) and the protected habitats in Natura 2000 and the Red Book Volume III.
The database contains determination keys for the vascular plants (wild and cultivated) in Bulgaria and the neighboring territories of Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Greece and Turkey. The determination keys contain 6275 species (native and foreign) in 1336 genera from 178 families.
The division Lycopodiophyta is represented in the book by 3 families, 5 genera and 10 species, 7 of them distributed in Bulgaria.
The division Polypodiophyta contains 9 families, 24 genera and 65 species, 59 of them in Bulgaria.
The division Pinophyta consists of 7 families, 26 genera and 87 species. 81 of the species are found in Bulgaria, as 57 of them are introduced.
The two classes of Magnoliophyta are represented by 6115 species, of which 4904 are found in the flora of Bulgaria (autochthonous and allochthonous species).
The dicots are represented by 4998 species (from 128 families), of which 3956 species are part of the Bulgarian flora. The monocots are 1127 species (from 30 families), as 948 of the species and subspecies are represented in the Bulgarian flora.
Mosses have special requirements for the collection and examination of the material. For this reason, the book does not include representatives of the divisions Anthocetotophyta, Marchantiophyta and Bryophyta but only 3 examples.
The structure of the high taxonomic levels is in accordance with the revisions based on modern phylogenetic studies indicated in the bibliographic reference.
The text and the tables with definitions include 1221 species that are not represented in the flora of Bulgaria, but are found in neighboring countries. In some of the major critical genera, especially those with very contradictory taxa and different perceptions of their volume (eg
Taraxacum, Hieracium, Pilosella, Crepis, Festuca, Poa ), not all species are included in the definition tables, but can be filtered by alphabetical order.
Some species are illustrated with drawings where possible. The illustrations used are freely available, and are cited in place with links to the original sources.
The development of this product was funded by the Agricultural University - Plovdiv (project 06-19). We express our gratitude for the corrections and notes sent by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Antoaneta Petrova, Krassimir Lakovski, Rosen Vassilev, Ivan Kostadinov and Dr. Julian Marinov. We also thank the students оn Agronomy-Farming, Plant Protection, and Ecology and Environmental Protection from the Agricultural University of Plovdiv, who tested the interactive application of stages 2 and 3 during the last 4 years.
2019: Stage 1 published (to family level)
2020: Stage 2 published (to genuslevel)
2021: Published paper and PDF version
25.06.2022: Published interactive extended edition
We thank for the corrections and notes sent by Antoineta Petrova, Krasimir Lakovski, Rossen Vassilev, Ivan Kostadinov and Yulian Marinov. 17.07.2022: fixed bugs and numbering errors.
We thank Ivan Kostadinov for the indicated errors. 2.2023: Added new data. Fixed bugs and numbering errors.
БWe are grateful to Ivan Kostadinov, Salza Palpurina, Rossen Vassilev, Desislav Dimitrov and Yulian Marinov for the suggestions and the indicated errors.
Aknowledgements to the 1st year students of Agricultural University - Plovdiv from the majors "Plant Protection" and "Ecology and Environmental Protection" 2020-2023, who helped to fix the errors in the code.