Fifty years of mapping the Balkan flora for Atlas Florae Europaeae

Atlas Florae Europaeae (AFE), a programme for mapping the distribution of vascular plants in Europe, was launched in 1965 as a collaborative effort between European botanists. A historical review of the mapping for AFE in the Balkan countries, cited in the last volume (16) from 2013 as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic (F. Y. R.) of Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey (European part), is presented and achievements and problems discussed. The special challenges facing mapping of the Balkan area during the past 50 years include the extremely rich flora, diverse and mountainous relief, political and economic difficulties, inaccessibility of available data, and scarcity of botanists contributing and collecting data for mapping.