Excursion booklet

Abstract

Abstract

This article is the excursion booklet for the 34th conference of the European Vegetation Survey, the European group of the International Association of Vegetation Sciences, which is being held in Auvergne from September 7 to 13, 2026. Several excursions are being organized during this congress in honor of Josias Braun-Blanquet and Aimé Luquet as part of the centenary of phytosociological studies in Auvergne published in the Revue d’Auvergne in 1926. The conference is taking place in Clermont-Ferrand from September 7 to 11. The mid-conference excursion takes place on September 9th in the Dore mountains. An evening excursion is scheduled for September 10th to the summit of the puy de Dôme, coinciding with the social dinner. A post-conference excursion, from September 11th to 13th is being held in the Cantal mountains. The first part of the booklet presents the physical environment, human uses, and major vegetation types of the region. Each of the three mountain ranges visited is then the subject of a detailed description of its environment, the plant communities present, their dynamic relationships, its landscape compartments, and its typical flora. The excursion routes prioritize returning to sites surveyed a hundred years ago, some of which are classici loci of phytosociological alliances described for the first time in 2026 by Braun-Blanquet and/or Luquet as Nardion, Genisto-Vaccinion, Adenostylion, Festucion variae, Cardamino-Montion, Fagion, Calamagrostion, Caricion fuscae, Arrhenatherion, Piceion. In the Dore mountains, the participants visited the Chaudefour valley, the cirque of Monneaux, The Pavin lake, and the Capucin. On the puy de Dôme, they observed the summit vegetation as well as the lanscape of the Chaîne des puys. In the Cantal mountains, the subalpine areas of the northern part of the Chaîne of the Plomb du Cantal and the cirque of Impradine below the Puy Mary were explored, as well as the basaltic hill of the Chapelle Sainte Anne north of Murat. In total, 81 plant communities are mentioned and described in this booklet, resulting from the most recent and in-depth researches, integrated within the hierarchical system of the French (Prodrome des végétations de France, PVF2) and European (EuroVegChecklist) phytosociological classification.