The bear in Eurasian plant names: motivations and models.

Ethnolinguistic studies are important for understanding an ethnic group's ideas on the world, expressed in its language. Comparing corresponding aspects of such knowledge might help clarify problems of origin for certain concepts and words, e.g. whether they form common heritage, have an independent origin, are borrowings, or calques. The current study was conducted on the material in Slavonic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugrian, Turkic and Albanian languages. The bear was chosen as being a large, dangerous animal, important in traditional culture, whose name is widely reflected in folk plant names. The phytonyms for comparison were mostly obtained from dictionaries and other publications, and supplemented with data from databases, the co-authors' field data, and archival sources (dialect and folklore materials). More than 1200 phytonym use records (combinations of a local name and a meaning) for 364 plant and fungal taxa were recorded to help find out the reasoning behind bear-nomination in various languages, as well as differences and similarities between the patterns among them. Among the most common taxa with bear-related phytonyms were Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng., Heracleum sphondylium L., Acanthus mollis L., and Allium ursinum L., with Latin loan translation contributing a high proportion of the phytonyms. Some plants have many and various bear-related phytonyms, while others have only one or two bear names. Features like form and/or surface generated the richest pool of names, while such features as colour seemed to provoke rather few associations with bears. The unevenness of bear phytonyms in the chosen languages was not related to the size of the language nor the present occurence of the Brown Bear in the region. However, this may, at least to certain extent, be related to the amount of the historical ethnolinguistic research done on the selected languages.

Allium ekimianum: a new species (Amaryllidaceae) from Turkey.

Allium ekimianum is described here as a new species. This taxon belongs to the genus Allium section Allium and grows in Elazig Province (East Anatolia, Turkey). It is a narrowly distributed species and morphologically most similar to Allium asperiflorum and Allium sintenisii, and Allium erzincanicum but it is clearly differentiated due to the curved stem, smooth pedicel surfaces, bracteole arrangements at pedicel bases, tepal lengths and surfaces. In this study, a comprehensive description, distribution map of Allium ekimianum, identification key, and detailed illustrations are provided for Allium ekimianum and related taxa.

Essential oil composition of four endemic Ferulago species growing in Turkey.

The essential oils from aerial parts of Ferulago pachyloba (Fenzl) Boiss., F. platycarpa Boiss. & Bal., F. isaurica Penmen, and F. longistylis Boiss. (Apiaceae) were obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by GC and GC-MS. The highest oil yield (1.50%) was obtained from F. pachyloba followed by F. longistylis (0.16%), F. isaurica (0.08%) and F. platycarpa (0.07%). Fifty-three compounds were identified in the oil of F. pachyloba with (Z)-beta-ocimene (25.7%) and alpha-pinene (9.8%) as main constituents; sixty-seven in the oil of F. platycarpa with 2,3,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde (29.8%) and cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (24.2%) as main components; seventy-eight in the oil of F. isaurica with nonacosane (25.5%) and hexadecanoic acid (14.8%) as main constituents; and fifty-nine in the oil of F. longistylis with 2,3,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde (32.7%) and bornyl acetate (12.6%) as main components. Quantitative and qualitative differences in the oil compositions of these four species were observed.