Modified Ellenberg – Müller-Dombois life form system
This life form system is an adaptation of Ellenberg & Mueller-Dombois’ (1974) system to the vascular plants of Hungary. Categories missing from Hungary (e.g., epiphytes) are not listed. It contains two hierarchical levels: main categories and subcategories. Their meanings are shown in the form of the determination key below:
Determination key of the main categories
1 a) Autotrophic plants........................................................................ 2
b) Plants not able to photosynthesize............................................. 8
2 a) Plants rooting in soil, sediment or floating in water................ 3
b) Plants rooting in and taking up water and mineral nutrients
from xylem of other plants............................................................ Hemi-parasites (HP)
3 a) Self-supporting plants.................................................................... 4
b) Plants rooting in the soil, but grow by supporting themselves
on others.......................................................................................... Lianas (L)
c) Water plants..................................................................................... Hydrophytes (HH)
4 a) Woody plants or herbaceous evergreen perennials.................... 5
b) Herbaceous deciduous plants......................................................... 6
5 a) Plants growing taller than 50 cm and shoots do not die back
periodically to that height limit.................................................... Phanaerophytes (Ph)
b) Plants whose mature shoot system remains perennially
within 50 cm above ground surface or plants that grow
taller but whose shoots die back periodically............................ Chamaephytes (Ch)
6 a) Annuals, plants whose shoot and root system dies after
seed production and which complete their whole life cycle
within one year............................................................................... Therophytes (Th)
b) Perennial (including biennial) herbaceous plants with
periodic shoot reduction............................................................... 7
7 a) Periodic reduction of the complete above-ground shoot
system to storage organs embedded in the soil....................... Geophytes (G)
b) Periodic shoot reduction to a remnant shoot system that
lies relatively flat on the ground surface.................................... Hemicryptophytes (H)
8 a) Growing on living plants................................................................ Parasites (P)
b) Growing on dead organic matter................................................ Saprophytes (S)
Determination key for sub-categories
Phanerophytes
a) Trees, single-stemmed plants with lateral branches.................. Phscap
b) Shrubs, phanerophytes from near the base from the stem..... Phcaesp
Geophytes
a) Root-budding geophytes............................................................... Groot
b) Bulbous geophytes, arising from bulbs or corms...................... Gbulb
c) Rhizomatous geophytes................................................................. Grhiz
Therophytes
a) Spring-green (winter) annuals: germinating from late
autumn to spring, flowering in spring or early summer........... Thwin
b) Summer-green annuals: germinating from late spring,
flowering in summer...................................................................... Thsum
Lianas
1 a) Woody lianas, including all climbing plants that
do not die back periodically to the ground............................. PL
b) Herbaceous lianas, the above-ground shoot
periodically dies back.................................................................. 2
2 a) Annual lianas, they complete their whole life cycle
within one year............................................................................ TL
b) Perennial herbaceous lianas..................................................... 3
3 a) Periodic reduction of the complete above-ground
shoot system to storage organs embedded in the soil........ GL
b) Periodic shoot reduction to a remnant shoot system
that lies relatively flat on the ground surface........................ HL
Within Saprophytes, Parasites, and Hemi-parasites, sub-categories according to life-span and the position of over-wintering buds can be applied similarly to the sub-categories of lianas.
The modified Ellenberg – Müller-Dombois life form system and the categorization of the species was prepared by Zoltán Botta-Dukát.
Data source and citation:
Botta-Dukát, Z., Bartha, D., Dancza, I., Lukács, B. A., & Pinke, G. (2023). Adaptation of Life form Categorisation of Ellenberg and Mueller-Dombois to the Hungarian Flora. Acta Botanica Hungarica 65: 1-34.
Sonkoly, J., Tóth, E., Balogh, N., Balogh, L., Bartha, D. ... Török, P. (2022) PADAPT 1.0 – the Pannonian Database of Plant Traits. bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.05.519136
Other references:
Bartha D. (2021) An Annotated and Updated Checklist of the Hungarian Dendroflora. Acta Botanica Hungarica 63(3-4): 227-284.
Horváth, F., Dobolyi, K., Morschhauser, T., Lőkös, L., Karas, L., & Szerdahelyi, T. (1995) Flóra adatbázis 1.2. Taxon-lista és attribútum állomány. Vácrátót: MTA ÖBKI.
Mueller-Dombois, D. & Ellenberg, H. (1974) Aims and methods of vegetation ecology. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
