Included here is northern Greece (including the Pindos Mountains), parts of Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia (including the Karawanken and Julian Alps)

Balkan (Pannonic) Steppe Grassland

The remains of natural steppe grassland typically occur on the so-called black earth soils where conditions are too dry for scrub or woodland. The most natural examples are dominated by Stipa species such as S. capillata and S. lessingiana, but these are now mainly confined to reserves such as the Steppe Nature Reserves of Fîntînita-Murfatlar in Romania. Typical early flowering plants include Adonia volgensis, Colchicum triphyllum, Gagea pusilla, Holosteum umbellatum, Hyacinthella leucophaea, Ornithagalum refractum, Paeonia tenuifolia, Veronica triphyllos and Viola suavis. But the flowering period reaches a peak in early summer when grasses such as Festuca rupicola and Stipa lessingiana come into flower together with species like Astragalus glaucus, Erysimum diffusum, Euphorbia nicaeenis, Minuartia viscosa and Ranunculus oxyspermus. The many endemic taxa found in these grasslands include Centaurea napulifera subsp. pseudoxillaris (Asteraceae), Linum dolomiticum (Linaceae), Ranunculus illyiricus (Ranunculaceae) and Seseli leucospermum (Apiaceae) and central European endemic Thymus pannonicus (Lamiaceae).

References

Horvat, I, Glavac, V & Ellenberg, H. 1974. Vegetation of Southeast Europe. Gustav Fischer Verlag. Stuttgart.

Polunin, O. 1980. Flowers of Greece and the Balkans. Oxford University Press.

Turrill, W. B. 1929. The Plant life of the Balkan Peninsula - a phytogeographical study. Oxford.

Webb, D. A. 1966. The Flora of European Turkey. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 6: 1-100.