Regarding the meaning of the terms erep and assu, as well as their descendants Europa and Asia, and then Occidens and Oriens, we find that they mean directions; that is, they are relative terms the exact meaning of which depends on the (normal) position of the speaker, on his or her subjectivity.
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- Following the first article
Steppe
Obviously, some steppe is a considerable part of the vegetation of Anatolia. Though it was only a minor component in the natural landscape, which was dominated by woods, it is indeed a pristine element and moreover it is today, in the form of cultural landscape, a widely dominant element.
In this segment, we find a lot of genera and species linked to central and western Asia as defined above. However, among them there are many genera and even some species I know well from the Midrhine area and adjacent regions of Germany. Here, some of those species are relics of the periglacial steppes that once covered most of Europe, and/or relics of the climatically warmest period of the postglacial (the so called sub-Atlanticum). The former are rather eastern, the latter rather southern, (sub-) Mediterranean, species, with some (“Turano-Mediterranean”) overlap.
The respective species dwell on rocky terrain, on stony meadows or riverine sands in the region. A third segment is known from agricultural fields, vineyards, village periferies or other ruderal locations, along roads and railways for instance. These species have arrived here with agricultural man since the Neolithics - and as agriculture developed in Anatolia, it’s not a big surprise to find some of the natural flora of Anatolia turned into culture-companions in most of Europe (and some even globally).
At any rate, the steppes do not give us an unequivocal account. The dominant natural steppe formations of Anatolia, long-grass (Stipa-) and Artemisia-steppes, are east-European as well as central-Asian (or, say, central-Eurasian), and some of the species occur all over Europe, too. In addition, many other species are Anatolian endemics, characterizing the region as a (sub-) center of its own: a “minor”, perhaps, but of what?
Perhaps, we should look for the woody vegetation, which by nature would dominate the appearance of Anatolia and which, despite all the losses, is still considerably dominant in many regions and still present, at least, in all.
Woodland
What most people may know from picture postcards or tourism advertisement are the cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens). Best known from Italy or perhaps from Greece, the species also occurs in coastal Turkey. The wild stands are quite rare today, but most pittoresque, and cultivated forms are used in many places.
Otherwise near the coast, either the Macchia/Garrigue/Phryganea vegetation dominates the woody vegetation (with genera like Erica (arborescens), Arbutus, Olea, Ceratonia, Colutea, Paliurus, Rhus coriaria, Rhamnus, Myrtus, Laurus, Pistacia, Phillyrea, Cercis, Celtis, Styrax, Pyracantha, and so on, those more or less common to the Mediterranean region at large); or it is the Mediterranean pines (mainly Pinus brutia, rarely the closely related P. halepensis or the umbrella pine Pinus pinea); or evergreen oaks. Whereas the respective oak species widespread in France, Quercus ilex, is very rare at the western coast, it is replaced by related species like Quercus coccifera and/or infectoria.
There are nearly twenty species of oaks in Turkey, including the common central-European Quercus petraea and robur, several mediterranean and sub-mediterranean-balcanic species (frainetto, cerris, pubescens, aegilops, trojana), or the endemic Q. vulcanica, the Caucasian-Anatolian pontica, macranthera and the Levantine libani.
Like oaks, pines occur in every part of the country as a dominant or co-dominant forest species. Most numerous, and widespread outside the eu-Meditarranean region are the sub-Mediterranean black pine Pinus nigra (in Anatolia the ssp. pallasiana, in France replaced by corsicana and in Austria by austriaca, for instance); and Pinus sylvestris, quite common in Europe (north, west, central, east) and Siberia.
A dominant species in northern Anatolia is the beech. Known as Fagus orientalis from Bulgaria to the Caucasus region, the species is closely related to and not easily distinguishable from Fagus sylvatica, which occurs in western Europe and the Balkan region. As an outlyer it occurs in the Amanus mountains, Hatay, at the southernmost tip of Turkey (and a bit south of “Asia minor”). Otherwise it is lacking in “Asia”.
The upper regions of the Amanus or Nur Daglari are special in that they are dominated by woodland species otherwise occurring in the Balkans and Northern Anatolia, many of which are typical for central-European forests, too.
Similar to beech is Anatolian fir in that they range from Caucasian Abies nordmanniana along the northern mountain ridges through A. bornmuelleriana to the Balkans, where it meets A. borisii-regis and A. alba, which in turn extends to western Europe (France). But there is another close relative in western Anatolia, A. equi-trojani, which leads into the Greek A. cephalonica. And there is another, more isolated species in southern Anatolia, Abies cilicica. This may be a relic of an older layer of European firs, in that resembling the Spanish A. pinsapo.
Whereas fir is widespread, spruce only occurs in northeastern Anatolia, as Picea orientalis, a species common with the Caucasus region. The yew however, Taxus baccata, occurs also westwards to the Aegean region, and south to the Amanus. It is the same species as in western Europe. There are also 7 species of juniper, some shared with the west and some with the east.
A last but prominent coniferous tree is to mention, the cedar Cedrus libani. Better known as the Lebanon-cedar, its main aerea of distribution (some ninety percent) is in fact southern Anatolia, with two isolated natural outlyers in the north. It also occurs in coastal Syria. As to draught and winter coldness, the species is quite resistant, and it is successfully used in Turkish forestry for reafforestation in several parts of Anatolia. Alptekin, Bariteau & Fabre (1997) discuss the use of this species for reafforestation in southern France as well, where tries have been hitherto quite successful.
During the Ice Ages or Pleistocene, the genus Cedrus has become extinct in Europe (though not in “Asia minor”), where it had flourished during the Pliocene age. There are several such relic species of the late-Tertiary (Plio-Miocene) European woody flora in Anatolia, with the riverine Liquidambar orientalis in SW Anatolia and Rhodos, and several species common to northern Anatolia and the Caucasus (Zelkova, Pterocarya, Rhododendron spp., Laurocerasus). One of the latter, the sweet chestnut Castanea sativa, was already reintroduced to western Europe by the Romans. Like the walnut Juglans regia, the species is quite widespread in Anatolia, in part probably by secondary naturalization from cultivated trees.
But they are also a pristine species here, as their occurrence is demonstrated archaeologically and/or palynologically (by analysis of fossil pollen). Therein they resemble many wild fruit trees such as fig (Ficus carica), cherries (Cerasus spp.), and other Rosaceae (Prunus, Amygdalus, Pyrus, Malus, Mespilus germanica, Cydonia), three species of hazel (Corylus), six of pistachios (Pistacia), three of mulberry (Morus), caper (Capparis spinosa) and grape (Vitis).
There are also five species of linden, three of elms, two of hornbeam and alder each, four of ash, twelve of maple, thirteen Sorbus, one plane, two hollies, two box-trees, three birches, lilac, hawthornes, blackthorn, roses, elders, several Cornus, Rubus, Euonymus, Ligustrum vulgare, Berberis, Hippophae, Ostrya carpinifolia, Myricaria germanica and several Tamarix, four poplar and 23 willow species, for instance. Nearly all are shared with the Balkan – Black Sea region, many with central and western Europe too, and/or with Mediterranean Europe, some exclusively with the Caucasus region. Some extend south to the outskirts of the Syrian and/or Negev desert, and some of the small trees or bushes eastwards to Tibet/the Himalaya. For instance, besides the three poplars more or less common in Europe (tremula, nigra and alba), there is a fourth species in Turkey, Populus euphratica, which as the name suggests occurs further south, too.
The reverse
So many woody species, while so much of the country is deforested and overgrazed, show both its natural wealth in forests and its sheer extension. Some of its more exclusive species have been widely planted in Europe, besides those already mentioned the lilac Syringa vulgaris, the Turkish tree hazel Corylus colurna, and Elaeagnus angustifolia..
Nonetheless, the country is in need and indeed works for quite some reafforestation. And while the Anatolian cedar may hop to France, something went in the opposite direction. An historically interesting case is Robinia pseudoacacia.
Introduced to Paris from southeastern North America in 1601 by the royal French gardener Jean Robin (1550-1629), the species was widely planted in France and adjacent countries like England and Italy, where it now grows extensively in the wild. Soon adopted in Prussian gardens and forestry, the species dwells well in the cities as a feral pioneer species on rubble and the like, but hardly in the countryside. In eastern Germany, it is restricted to the warmest localities, like the larger cities. But in the Southwest, it has a much wider distribution.
Another station was Austrio-Hungarian forestry, where the species was widely used in karstic regions and on sand dunes of the Hungarian plain. Here, contrary to Prussia, the experiment was very successful. Obviously, it was then adopted east of the Austro-Hungarian empire, for instance in Romania and Bulgaria, where Robinia is a widespread forest tree today.
I don’t know how the species came to Turkey. By way of the Balkan states? Or was it introduced by foreign forestry experts, which had been sent by France and Austria in particular, but also from Prussia/Germany?
Robinia had been planted extensively in the early years of the republic around Ankara, as was reported by Herbert Louis. It is also known from the Trakya-Marmara and Aegean regions, where it may have arrived earlier. It was used for erosion control on sandy soils in Karapinar, Konya basin, obviously with some success; and even in the Göreme valley, the quintessential Cappadocia !
It occurs further east in the Kayseri region and in the Hatay near Iskenderun, both including feral stands along roads and in industrial areas.
Quite a number of exotic species have been used in Turkish forestry and attempts of erosion control, usually the same species which have been introduced in several European countries. Successes, failures, and disadvantages seem to be similar too. And just like elsewhere, no species was even approximately as successful as Robinia pseudoacacia in that it became widely naturalized as a spontanous member of vegetation.
What do we see? Certainly the influence of European forestry and its fashions in Turkey for at least a century. And a second-hand “Atlanto-Mediterranean” area of plant distribution, resembling quite a number of tree and other species (of linden, beech, hornbeam for instance) which have their most southeastern point of distribution in the Hatay, and the most northwestern one in Britain. The provisional outcome of a large scale experiment, though not a preplanned one, over four centuries. This area of distribution, in its general outline, is not untypical for an area of a European plant, though it proceeded in the opposite direction compared to the post-glacial migrations of woody species, and it was induced and triggered by humans. Yet, for both the stage was set by climate and physical geography.
What else?
What’s there besides the woody and steppe vegatation? Marine aquatic vegetation, that of coastal dunes and marshes – they resemble those elsewhere in the Mediterranean or Black Sea, respectively. There are lakes and ponds, rivers and rivulets with their aquatic and riparian vegetation – most similar are those in the Balkans, though much is just like in Germany. Its similar with the alpine meadows and bogs in the north. But the flora of rock-rubbish in central and eastern Anatolia is rather like Irano-Turanian.
The snakes of Southeastern Anatolia are largely the same as in the Levant, except for the specific desert and dry-steppe species who lack, and some northern ones which occur. Much Anatolian-Caucasian endemism occurs in snakes, yet most species are shared with the Balkans. There is a duck species in the region of Lake Van, Melanitta fusca, which otherwise occurs in the taiga-tundra region of Scandinavia and Siberia.
Most bird species are shared with some parts of Europe, especially, of course, the Balkans. Wild sheep dwell in Turkey and mainly further east (the “European mouflon”, certainly an interesting species, may in fact originate from Anatolia); whereas chamois live in Turkey and further west down to the Atlantic. All in all, more species of mammals, or of dragonflies, are shared with Europe than with what I have provisionally called “Asia” here. There is a quite distinct north- to central-European dragonfly fauna in the north of Anatolia, and a distinctly Mediterranean one in the south.
So when we should seek for a name characterizing the natural setting of this region, it might best be called “Europa minor”.
Is this proposal “ahistorical”? Presumably yes, though not in the context of natural history. Historically, the name “Asia” has been used as a Greek regional or Roman provincial name, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if the meaning of the term is shifted from being an historical artifact so as to suggest that it were a natural fact, then we should look twice at the facts of natural history. Is the “Asianness” of “Asia minor” indeed a natural fact, or not?
And indeed, it is not!
It’s just nonsense.
The end
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