Flora of Libya

History of the floristic and taxonomic studies conducted in Libya:

The exploration of Libyan natural plants dates back to 1703 when Lemaire studied some archaeological remains from the Cyrenaica region, he explained his vision of the Sylphium,

and confirmed that it corresponds to the samples still in the herbarium of Paris, which has recently been confirmed as a (Phlomis floccose).

In 1707 Lucas visited several areas of the Libyan coastline,

In 1817, Della-Cella collected about 260 plant species from Tripoli to the border of Egypt along the coastline, These collections have been studied and recorded in (Della Cella & Viviani, 1819).

Five years later, Domenico, Viviani published Florae Libycae specimen (Viviani, 1824). In1821 Lyon also provided a list of plants planted in the Fezzan region,supported by some information on the natural vegetation in the area,

Dickson collected many plants during his presence in the city of Tripoli from 1818 to 1847 and also provided live samples to a number of botanical gardens abroad,

and Cosson published all Dickson studies and compilations in 1826, Richardson in (1848) also published his work on his journey from Tripoli to Ghat, through Ghadames and Sukneh., Merzak in the period from 1845 to 1846.

One important work was that of Rholfs 1871 the study of the vegetation cover in Tripoli, Fezzan, Ghadames, Kufra, Ogla, and Cyrenaica. which was more accurate and modern in information, this study also included a list of local plant names.

Cosson 1826 provided a list of the names of plants collected by Duveyrier from the regions of Tripoli, Fezzan and Ghadames, In his traditional study,

Nachtigal 1879 provided important information on the vegetation of Tripoli and the areas along the road from Tripoli to Fezzan, passing through Sukneh and Merzak, as confirmed by Ascherson the correct definition of plants.

Schweinfurth collected plants from the Bay of Tobruk to the marina of Lac, Schwienfurth & Ascherson (1893 ) published an important list of plants the Marmarica area, which covered the area from the Gulf of Bomba to Alexandria.

Taubert collected a plethora of plants from the region of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, especially from the city of Derna, and Schwienfurth & Ascherson 1893 published Taubert's collections of plants and the collections of Sickenderger, Roth.

The first and attempt to write Flora in Libya was the had accomplished in 1910 by Durand & Barratte and in collaboration with Ascherson, Barbey, and Muschler, which lacked a description of the species,

The aim, as indicated in the introduction to this work, was to consolidate the work into a single volume of several publications on Libyan flora,

including a number of important compilations, such as those by Taubert, Ruhmer, Petrovich and Haimann.

Studies carried out by many Italian vegetarians Trotter, Pampanini, Beguinot & Borzi, Corti gave ample information on Libya's plants and vegetation, through their work done from 1910 to 1942.

Some of the French vegetarians in their studies during the twentieth century also worked on North Africa and desert plants, where they touched in one way or another on the Libyan plants, notably Chevalier, Maire, Ozenda, Quezel, Le Houerou.

Keith (1965) published A Preliminary Check List of the Flora of Libya, and made many remarks about the uses of plants along with listing their vernacular names.

Boulos 1967-1972 collected about seven thousand plants from various Libyan regions, and was published in a work entitled Flora and vegetation of Libya, (Boulos, 1972).

And A checklist of the Libyan flora was published by Boulos 1977-1979 (Boulos, 1977, 1979a, 1979b).

From 1969 to 1979, Scholz published several researches on vegetation in Libya, especially on weeds, in which he described many new plant species not previously mentioned.

From 1976 to 1986, for almost ten years, the Encyclopedia of Libyan Plants was implemented. Tripoli University(Al-Fateh previously) (1976), with the financial support of the Arab Development Institute, took up the flora of Libya project.

Where Ali, S.I., Jafri, S. & Jafri, S., El-Gadi, A compiled and revised all previous studies and revised in an encyclopedia of about 150 families.

This study was followed by several researches, including the Faruqi & Quraish 1979-1980 study on herbs in Libya, in which it described about 233 plant species. 

And the study of Qaiser, M. & El Gadi, A. 1984, a statistical analysis of the Libyan flora.

Siddiqi et al 1986 published research on several species that were not previously collected and not included in the Encyclopedia of Libyan Plants.

Brullo, S.& Furnari, F. 1994 also studied Green Mountain plants, Leonard 1999 studied the plants in Mount Uwainat.

Recently, numerous studies were published on the flora of Libya, but few have dealt with its vegetation analysis. 

The website:

This website will be form the exhaustive work on Libyan flora and gives researcher general basic information of the wild flowering plants of Libya.

These will provide valuable information for the future conservation and management strategies of these natural resources in Libya.

Information on the distribution of plants in Libya can be found on the website, and information can be updated according to researches published.

The numbers of Families, genera and species are listed in Table (1). They are subject to change according to the new published researches.

The analysis of the distribution of the species shows that 3 families are represented by more than 100 species each.

These are: the Asteraceae, Poaceae and Fabaceae

And the other families which are represented by a number of species between 50 and 100.

These are: Brassicaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Apiaceae, Amaranthaceae, Lamiaceae.

The families are represented by less than 50 species, such as: Boraginaceae, and Plantaginaceae.