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Sono riportati i risultati del progetto"Sviluppo della tartuficoltura in Sicilia"

Tamarix macrocarpa, a species with distribution in Central and North Africa, in the countries bordering the Persian Gulf and in Central and western Asia is recorded for the first time for Europe. Pentamerous flowers and androecium diplostemonous characterize this small tree.

The taxonomy of genus Tamarix L. is notoriously controversial and many taxa are still not or wrongly identified. A huge number of tamarisk specimens are kept in the most important herbaria of Spanish universities but many labels needs a deep nomenclatural revision. The Tamarix collection in Universitat de Barcelona (BCN) is composed by 158 samples, collected in different Comunidades Autónomas de España, and corresponding to 14 taxa.

In the wide scenario of herbaria housed in the Italian Universities there are very few examples of structures mainly devoted to forest sciences and fungi in forest ecosystems. The “Regio Istituto Superiore Forestale di Vallombrosa” (Tuscany), established in 1869, was the first example of a structure that housed an herbarium with exsiccata of forest trees. In Italy, the southernmost laurea degree course in “Environmental and Forest Sciences” concern the Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences in the University of Palermo (Sicily). Two herbaria (CAT and PAL) are currently present in Sicily with the following specialties: a) Vascular plants, bryophytes, and algae of Mediterranean area, specially Italy, Sicily, and Cyrenaica (Libya) [CAT]; b) Sicily; Mediterranean basin; Canary Islands; South America; Somalia; South Africa; Australia [PAL]. As a result of University reform introduced by the Italian Government, faculties were transformed into mega-Departments. The Department of Agriculture and Forestry was thus established in January 2013 as a substitute for the Agricultural Faculty. The Department includes botanists, agronomist and foresters whose research activities in the field provides for the collection and identification of numerous herbarium specimens of forest trees and fungi. Besides in the subject “Forest Botany and Mycology” all students are required to submit for the final exam an herbarium of dried plants and fungi collected during the lessons in the field including at least 25 species. The new herbarium currently holds ca. 5131 specimens (plants, shrubs, fungi) but this number is expected to increase rapidly. The fungal section is a valuable resource that holds also voucher collections of macro- and microfungi including: 1) plant pathogenic fungi and dried organs of diseased plants showing symptoms and signs, 2) fungi that are deadly poisonous to humans when consumed, and 3) fungi that are useful for commercial applications (e.g. industrial processing, bioremediation, medicinal, antagonists of plant parasites, cultivable edible mushrooms). The newly-formed forest trees section is particularly rich in specimens from the Mediterranean maquis. A relevant section is represented by Tamarix L. species as a result of numerous collections of tamarisk carried out in several Italian regions. Specimens of plants are pressed, dried, and mounted on sheets while cryptogams are stored in folded paper envelopes. The herbarium is temporarily housed in the former library of the Institute of Plant Pathology of the former Faculty of Agriculture but the future goal is to have a larger space that includes also other types of scientific collections.

Field investigations and herbaria reference work carried out in Italy and Spain allowed us to identify wild and cultivated plants of Tamarix meyeri, a new species from western Europe. This small tree is characterized by tetramerous, rarely pentamerous flowers and a paralophic disk.

Tamarix arborea (Sieb. Ex Ehrenb.) Bge. var. arborea e T. chinensis Lour. sono due specie ampiamente diffuse sul territorio siciliano dove, oltre ad essere coltivate a scopo ornamentale, da alcuni anni manifestano una chiara tendenza alla spontaneizzazione. Nell’ambito dell’esplorazione floristica del territorio siciliano, finalizzato ad una più esauriente caratterizzazione del genere Tamarix L. in Italia (1, 2, 3), sono state individuate nuove stazioni di Tamarix arborea var. arborea e T. chinensis. Tamarix arborea var. arborea è diffusamente coltivata a San Vito Lo Capo (Trapani) come specie ornamentale, mentre allo stato spontaneo è stata raccolta all’interno della Riserva Naturale Orientata “Bosco della Ficuzza, Rocca Busambra, Bosco del Cappelliere e Gorgo del Drago” ad oltre 900 m s.l.m.. Questo ritrovamento assume un particolare significato floristico, in quanto si tratta della prima segnalazione all’interno della Riserva, e fitogeografico perchè per la prima volta segnalata in ambiente submontano nell’entroterra siciliano. In particolare l’esemplare di T. arborea var. arborea è stato rinvenuto in prossimità di una zona umida all’interno dell’ampia fascia in cui la base del massiccio, caratterizzata da detriti di falda di natura carbonatica, verso Nord si compenetrano con argilliti, argille marnose e quarzareniti del Flysh Numidico, dell’Oligocene-Miocene inferiore, su un versante interessato da movimenti di massa. Il piano bioclimatico è il mesomediterraneo (fascia subumida superiore) e la serie edafo-igrofila che caratterizza la stazione è quella del Salice pedicellato (Ulmo canescentis-Saliceto pedicellatae sigmetum). Anche T. chinensis Lour. è ampiamente diffusa in Sicilia come pianta coltivata ad uso ornamentale e presenta evidenti casi di spontaneizzazione negli ambienti dunali della Sicilia nord-occidentale ed orientale, in particolare sul litorale di Balestrate (Trapani) ed in località Cala mosche inclusa nella Riserva Naturale Orientata “Vendicari”, nel territorio di Noto (Siracusa). Il ritrovamento di T. chinensis in quest’ultima località costituisce la prima segnalazione per la Sicilia orientale. In fine, in riferimento all’esemplare di T. arborea var. arborea, le dimensioni degli elementi fiorali sono le maggiori finora riscontrate sul territorio italiano (Calabria, Sardegna, Sicilia) e in letteratura.