Content Snippets from maltawildplants.com
"MaltaWildPlants.com website describes in detail the wild flowering plants growing in the Maltese islands - an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea composed of 5 main islands - Malta, Gozo, Comino, Selmunett and Filfla. The biodiversity of plants on these islands is very rich and over 1100 species are recorded from the various habitats of Malta, such as in woodland, maquis, pre-desert scrub, garigue, steppe, wasteland, abandoned fields, walls, cliff edges, valleys, coastal areas, shores, rock pools and sand dunes. I always wished to create a database of the wild plants found in my country with detailed information and high resolution photos. This project started in October 2002 and is kept updated till present. During this time I became a professional qualified botanists and so the information supplied is reliable, of which most is obtained from renowned books and internet sites. Additionally, the layout, presentation, high quality annotated photos, user-friendly navigation, and indexes make this website to stand out received an international award for management and prestige by the Actualidad 21st Century in October 2005.
During 2007-2010, short plant profiles were included in the website for most of the plant species that grow in the wild. Selected species are native wild plants, naturalised plants and other alien plants which can grow in the wild by themselves without the intervention of man. These plant profiles are supplied with general nomenclature and information and illustrated with photos taken during these last years. This ongoing project now offers almost 10,000 images of wild plant species from the Maltese islands. In 2008, a section for the fauna and funghi of Malta was also included, but this is not as comprehensive as the section of flora, and at the moment, this section serves as an introduction to the biodiversity of fauna, funghi and crypotagams in Malta.
Maltawildplants.com features several indices. Themain index, categorise plant species by their botanical families and genera. If this is unfriendly for the amateur, there are four other indices by which plants are listed by their Scientfic Name, English common name, Maltese common name and flower colour. Furthermore there are two search engines, a local one for searching plant names and another one for free text in the entire website, powered by google tools. Hence, a particular plant can be easily found in this website both by the professional and by the green-fingered amateur. There is lot of valuable information about plants that are featured in a full (=detailed) plant profile such as the nomenclature of the plant, botanical information, habitat, sources in Malta, morphological description, medicinal and edible uses, traditional virtues, history, curiosities and dozens of photos. The information is referenced.
Such work cannot be completed in a short time, because there is a vast amount of information to be researched and entered for every plant species. Each detailed plant-profile takes many hours of work apart that required for the organisation of the website structre and its indices, email requests, botanical study and field surveys, taxonomical changes and regular updates. For this reason, I have recently been seeking for sponsorships and adverts to keep my dedication on this project during my free time, as well keeping the website free of charge. I would like to thank past sponsors namely HSBC, MiddleSea Insurance, Strickland Foundation, Malta Nature Tours and MCST, while I send a special thanks to Malta Tourism Authority and AIS who are the main sponsors of this year.
In the meantime, it would be very encouraging if visitors of this project express their comments about this website, perhaps writing how it was useful to them and any further criticism. If you have a company or business and interested to give a financial aid, webadverts are cheap while on a smaller and personal scale one can give a small contribution to keep this project alive. Don't miss the forum section of the site where one can discuss, ask questions or share his knowledge about the wild plants of the Maltese Islands. Finally do not hesitate to contact me to report mistakes or want to add your own information about and plant on this site.
Feel free to browse and discover the beautiful biodiversity of the Maltese flora and hope that you do your best, whether a local or a tourist, to safeguard it. About 70-80 species are belived to have gone extinct, and the over-population and fast development of this country is one of the main conservation issues. Observe the laws in connection with the environemnet, namely LN311/2006 and LN200/2011 amongst others. Please observe copyright notices about my work and photos - data on this website cannot be used without written permission from me.
Author, Photographer and Web-administrator
Stephen
Mifsud
M.Sc. Biodiv. & Tax. of Plants (RBGE); Dip. Agric. (UOM); Dip. Med. Lab. Science (UOM); Cert. Field Botany (RBGE) Malta."
"Endemism refers to species that are confined to a country or small geographical region, in our case the Maltese islands. Sometimes, the distribution of endemic species widens to parts of neighbouring countries and territories and are called sub-endemic. In our case these are the islands of Pantellaria, Lampedusa and more importantly Sicily. Strangely, some sub-endemic species are also found in Apulia in mainland Italy. Although some species appear to be common in our islands (e.g. Darniella melitensis, Euphorbia melitensis or Ophrys melitensis), one have to consider that they are confined to single location worldwide, and hence the importance of their protection and conservation especially from habitat loss. Only few endemic species are not protected, those which are very common, easy to regenerate due to the production of many seed, and their habitat is not declining or able to thrive in different habitats. Such examples are Anthemis urvilleana, Chiliadenus bocconei and Allium melitense.
Endemic species are formed mostly by splitting and isolation of a population combined with the effects of different environmental factors (amongst others). The budded population differentiates into a slightly different species from the mother population. The endemism in Malta is low relatively to other Mediterranean islands (Crete, Greece, Cyprus, Sicily, Corsica, Canary islands, etc) and the reason is due to the small size of our islands; the close proximity to continental mainland (Sicily) and low number of habitat niches. With regards to the latter, one have to keep in mind that Malta lack rivers, lakes, volcanic rock, swamps/bogs, high altitudes or brackish water - the latter was more abundant before development of the islands.
Recent study of our flora have given some new endemics such as two species found by the author of the website Polypodium vulgare subsp. melitensis and Ophrys bombyliflora forma parviflora and two other described by Italian scientists (Anthyllis hermanniae subsp. melitensis or Jacobaea maritima subsp. sicula). Two species are assigned to monotypic genera (= genera with only one species): Palaeocyanus and Cremnophyton (although recently, the former have been merged with Cheirolophus and the latter with Atriplex)
Below is a list of the known Maltese endemic species and subspecies. A few others have been suggested by pioneer botanists namely Sommier and Caruana Gatto (1915) and John Borg (1927) but their status or presence have not been confirmed at present date. The list below gives endemics which are confirmed and established."
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