Vegetation classification and its application are relevant globally.

The annual editorial of Phytocoenologia 2019 brings bittersweet news about plot-based vegetation classification. On the one hand, the editorial of our Special Issue "Classification Approaches" (issue 48(2)) reported noticeable gaps in several regions of the world. On the other hand, articles in recent Phytocoenologia reach more and more of these underrepresented regions and extend to previously rarely classified plant formations. Our last issues 48(1-4) included several papers applying vegetation classification to address a number of ecological and socio-economical questions. We highlight the classification of steppe vegetation in Pamir Alai and Tian-Shan Mountains in Middle Asia (Nowak et al. 2018, Phytocoenologia 48: 369-391) and acknowledge the authors with the Editor's Award 2018. Our Ecoinformatics Section attracts many submissions, but we regret that in 2018 we did not publish any paper in the Phytosociological Nomenclature Section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]