Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
is a small, heavily forested country situated on the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...
Palearctic realm
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sib ...
, and the
Temperate Northern Atlantic
The Temperate Northern Atlantic is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the temperate and subtropical waters of the North Atlantic Ocean and connecting seas, including the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and northern Gulf of Mexic ...
marine ecoregion.Spalding, M.D., et al.'' "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". ''Bioscience'' Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007
Phytogeographically
Phytogeography (from Greek φυτόν, ''phytón'' = "plant" and γεωγραφία, ''geographía'' = "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution o ...
, Estonia is shared between the Central European and Eastern European provinces of the
Circumboreal Region
The Circumboreal Region in phytogeography is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in Eurasia and North America, as delineated by such geobotanists as Josias Braun-Blanquet and Armen Takhtajan.
It is the largest floristic region i ...
within the
Boreal Kingdom
The Boreal Kingdom or Holarctic Kingdom (Holarctis) is a floristic kingdom identified by botanist Ronald Good (and later by Armen Takhtajan), which includes the temperate to Arctic portions of North America and Eurasia. Its flora is inherit ...
. According to the WWF, the territory of Estonia belongs to the
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
of
Sarmatic mixed forests
The Sarmatic mixed forests constitute an ecoregion within the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature classification (ecoregion PA0436). The term comes from the word "Sarmatia".
Distribution
This e ...
.
There are several plant species
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to Estonia. These include, for example, Saaremaa yellow rattle ( Rhinanthus osiliensis) and Estonian saw-wort ( Saussurea esthonica). In total, there are 83 endemic taxa, mostly from the hawkweed (
Hieracium
''Hieracium'' (),
known by the common name hawkweed and classically as (from ancient Greek ιεράξ, 'hawk'),
is a genus of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, and closely related to dandelion (''Taraxacum''), chicory (''Cichorium''), ...
) genus.
In total 1441 species of
vascular plants
Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They ...
have described, in addition more than 2500 species of algae, and 680 species of
lichens
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.
Vascular plants
The indigenous flora of Estonia includes 1441 species of vascular plants (with subspecies the number reaches 1538). The number of indigenous
pteridophytes
A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that disperses spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. Ferns, ...
angiosperms
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants ...
is 1387. These species belong to 113 families and 443 genera.
The largest genus is
Taraxacum
''Taraxacum'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The scientific and hobby study of the genus is known as taraxacology. The genus is native to Eurasia and Nor ...
with 165 species, followed by
Hieracium
''Hieracium'' (),
known by the common name hawkweed and classically as (from ancient Greek ιεράξ, 'hawk'),
is a genus of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, and closely related to dandelion (''Taraxacum''), chicory (''Cichorium''), ...
with 81, and
Carex
''Carex'' is a vast genus of more than 2,000 species of grass-like plants in the family Cyperaceae, commonly known as sedges (or seg, in older books). Other members of the family Cyperaceae are also called sedges, however those of genus ''Carex'' ...