The Edaphism: Gypsum, Dolomite and Serpentine Flora and Vegetation

Abstract

The relationship between plants and the different types of rocks has been known at least since the sixteenth century when Caesalpino linked the existence of the endemic Alyssum bertolonii to the Italian serpentines. In the seventeenth century , Spanish botanists Asso and Cavanilles also point out the same soil-plant connection in the Iberian gypsum, as later did Linnaeus creating the genus Gypsophila.