In Slovenia F. officinalis L. comprisses two subspecies (F. officinalis subsp. officinalis and F. officinalis subsp. wirtgenii (Koch) Arcangeli), which have not been studied in our country so far. The purpose of my thesis was to investigate the morphological characters for identification of the subspecies, to identify all available F. officinalis material from the LJU herbarium at the Department of Biology, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Ljubljana, and to find out how these subspecies are distributed in Slovenia.
In the morphometric study we included 62 herbarium sheets of F. officinalis (s. lat.). I measured 11 quantitative characters, 4 attributive characters, and I calculated 3 ratios between certain quantitative characters. The subspecies are best distinguished by the shape of the top limb of the upper petal, length of corolla, the width of the wing on the limb the upper petal, the width of the limb of the upper petal, the ratio of the width of the wing to the green central vein, the ratio of the width of the limb to the claw of the upper petal and the number flowers in the inflorescence. The difference in the color of the petals and sepals could not be confirmed due to herbarization. The fruit characters proved to have no discriminative value.
Of the 62 herbarium sheets in the study, only 8 were identified to the subspecies level (13 %). After our revision, the percentage of identification increased to 82 %. According to the results of my research, the subspecies F. officinalis subsp. wirtgenii is widespread mainly in the Submediterranean and Predinaric regions, with a few data also from the Prealpine region. F. officinalis subsp. officinalis is found almost all over the territory, except in the Alpine region, and is most common in the Prealpine and Submediterranean region. Our study significantly complemented the knowledge of the distribution of F. officinalis subsp. wirtgenii, known so far from only one quadrant (Jogan, 2001). The distribution map of F. officinalis subsp. officinalis in Slovenia is published for the first time.
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