Rediscovery of Androsace hausmannii (Primulaceae) and Braya alpina (Brassicaceae) in north tyrol : Implications for geobotany and listings of alpine taxa in red lists

Androsace hausmannii and Braya alpina STERNB. & HOPPE were rediscovered at the Ulricher Nieder saddle in the Loferer Steinberge and at Mount Groβer Solstein in the Karwendel range (both North Tyrol/Austria), respectively. The two species are listed as regionally extinct in the current version of the Red List for the North Tyrol (NEUNER & POLATSCHEK 2001). Androsace hausmannii LEYB. had formerly been reported from the Loferer (NEUMAYER 1929) and Leoganger Steinberge (HANDEL-MAZZETTI 1943) in the outermost eastern part of the North Tyrol (Bezirk Kitzbuhel) and B. alpina had sporadically been reported from the Karwendel range (Bezirk Innsbruck-Land) between 1836 (SAUTER 1838, HAUSMANN 1851: 63) and 1940 (HANDEL-MAzZETTI 1941, 1943). Additionally, there are two to the best of our knowledge unsubstantiated literature reports for B. alpina in North Tyrol: one from the Zillertaler Alpen (DALLA TORRE & SARNTHEIN 1892) and one from the Lechtaler Alpen (SCHULTZE-MOTEL 1986: 273-275). A. hausmannii and B. alpina are besides the recently rediscovered Crepis rhaetica HEGETSCHW. (ZIDORN & al. 1999) the second and the third alpine (in the sense of the altitudinal zone, not in the sense of the geographic region covering the European Alps) taxon recently rediscovered in North Tyrol. In this context, the 94 taxa currently regarded as extinct in the North Tyrol are discussed with a special focus on the 13 taxa, which are distributed in the alpine zone. Alpine regions and high alpine regions in particular are notoriously hard to reach and the distribution of rare and inconspicuous high alpine taxa is therefore difficult to monitor. To highlight this fact we propose a new IUCN category for the (potentially) threatened status of alpine taxa, which have not been reported for more than a decade but where an actual extinction was not observed. This proposed new category is named,,missing alpine taxon" (MAT) and should be accompanied by the year of the last substantiated report on the occurrence (voucher specimen or publication) of the particular taxon in the region the Red List is designed for. To complement this new category a,,rare alpine taxon" (RAT) for rare alpine taxa for which no endangerment is currently obvious is proposed. Both categories will serve to build a solid data basis for informed choices for the preservation of alpine taxa, for both, plants and animals and will contribute to a more precise definition of the categories ,,extinct" (EX) and "regionally extinct" (RE).