ИСТИНА

The family Celastraceae s.l. (incl. Hippocrateaceae and Stackhousiaceae) consists of 98 genera and ca. 1300 species, from them only app. 10% of genera (7-10) and 2,5% of species (30) are distributed in Himalayan region. This area is important as an arena of many evolutionary events in the taxon history and for understanding paths of dispersal Eurasian Celastraceae, especially for some species from Middle and Central Asia and Caucasus. The main aim of the report to analysis of all current data on the number of species and details of their distribution in the region with special focus to phylogenetic relationships between them that will clarify the links between separate species from different regions. Our approaches are: collection of herbarium specimens in the nature (many countries of the region), the personal work experience in the largest Herbaries of Europe and Asia, creating and analyzing of database with using by special computer programs. Key arguments/findings: 1) the number of species and genera drops sharply when moving from east to west in the Himalayas, more humid regions of Eastern Himalayan have more rich flora of Celastraceae; 2) Eastern Afghanistan (in the forestry zone of Hindu Kush) has only 4 species from 2 genera (for comparison: there are 10 species from 4 genera in Pakistan); 3) Caucasus mountain region has only 6 species from one genus, - Euonymus; 4) one of the problems is this disjunction of Celastraceae area in the west provinces of Afghanistan and north-eastern provinces of Iran or no, for solution of which it is necessary to collect and analysis of new herbarium materials; 5) the analysis shows clear phylogenetic relationships of the Middle/Central Asian and Caucasian family members with the Himalayan and East Asian representatives. Widespread species prevail everywhere in the region, % endemics are low.