Floristic and coenological analyses of the Quercus cerris forests in Italy.

In our research, we compiled and stored the most ever comprehensive database regarding Quercus cerris dominated forest in Italy. This included 2900 relevès of which 64% published and 36% deriving from unpublished data from the authors of this paper. The whole data set treated with multivariate analysis procedures displayed the occurrence of nine major clusters. Considering the geographic provenance of the relevés and their distribution in these nine clusters only a partial correspondence with the current major syntaxonomic frameworks emerged.