The Flora of Lithuania is estimated to comprise about 10,600 species. About 1,350 of these are vascular plant

Vascular plant

Vascular plants are those plants that have lignified tissues for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant. Vascular plants include the clubmosses, Equisetum, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms...

s; about 335 are bryophyte

Bryophyte

Bryophyte is a traditional name used to refer to all embryophytes that do not have true vascular tissue and are therefore called 'non-vascular plants'. Some bryophytes do have specialized tissues for the transport of water; however since these do not contain lignin, they are not considered to be...

s; and about 2,000 are algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

. Lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...

s are represented by about 500 species, and fungi

Fungus

A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...

 by about 6,400 species. About 550 of these species are considered extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

 or threatened

Threatened species

Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

. Protected areas now cover more than 12% of the territory of Lithuania.

Lithuania lies in both in the boreal

Boreal ecosystem

The term boreal is usually applied to ecosystems localized in subarctic and subantarctic zones, although Austral is also used for the latter....

 and the broadleaved (angiosperm) forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

 belts. A variety of species are therefore found within its relatively small territory, including species characteristic of the southern taiga

Taiga

Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...

. The occurrence of the hornbeam

Hornbeam

Hornbeams are relatively small hardwood trees in the genus Carpinus . Though some botanists grouped them with the hazels and hop-hornbeams in a segregate family, Corylaceae, modern botanists place the hornbeams in the birch subfamily Coryloideae...

 species Carpinus betulus

European Hornbeam

Carpinus betulus is a hornbeam native to eastern, western, central and southern England. It requires a warm climate for good growth, and occurs only at elevations up to 600 metres...

marks the border between the predominantly broadleaved zone in the south and the coniferous zone in the north.

Forests

Forest cover in Lithuania has waxed and waned along with its fortunes; as a general rule, times of prosperity led to deforestation for agricultural uses. This tendency was seen during the Soviet occupation; forest cover was about 20% in 1948, and increased to about 30% by 1990, when Lithuania regained its independence. It has since been relatively stable. The general consensus of scientific opinion is that the optimum forest cover for Lithuania is about 33%.

Conifer

Pinophyta

The conifers, division Pinophyta, also known as division Coniferophyta or Coniferae, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxa within the Kingdom Plantae. Pinophytes are gymnosperms. They are cone-bearing seed plants with vascular tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being...

s constitute about 60% of the total forest area. They are concentrated in the northern, western, and eastern, and far southern sections of the country. The principal conifers are Scots Pine

Scots Pine

Pinus sylvestris, commonly known as the Scots Pine, is a species of pine native to Europe and Asia, ranging from Scotland, Ireland and Portugal in the west, east to eastern Siberia, south to the Caucasus Mountains, and as far north as well inside the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia...

 at about 40%, and Norway Spruce

Norway Spruce

Norway Spruce is a species of spruce native to Europe. It is also commonly referred to as the European Spruce.- Description :...

 at about 20%.

Broadleaf trees dominate in the central areas of the country. Birch

Birch

Birch is a tree or shrub of the genus Betula , in the family Betulaceae, closely related to the beech/oak family, Fagaceae. The Betula genus contains 30–60 known taxa...

es constitute about 18% of the total, followed by Black Alder

Black Alder

Alnus glutinosa is an alder native to most of Europe, including all of the British Isles and Fennoscandia and locally in southwest Asia....

 (about 8%) and European Aspen

Aspen

Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...

 (about 8%); oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

, ash

Ash tree

Fraxinus is a genus flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45-65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous though a few subtropical species are evergreen. The tree's common English name, ash, goes back to the Old English æsc, while the generic name...

, and elm

Elm

Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The dozens of species are found in temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ranging southward into Indonesia. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests...

 make up the remainder.

Old growth forest

Old growth forest

An old-growth forest is a forest that has attained great age , and thereby exhibits unique ecological features. An old growth forest has also usually reached a climax community...

s are relatively rare in Lithuania, numbering about 100. Data collected in 1998 suggested that these forests occupied about 580 km².

Wetlands

About 5% of Lithuania is covered by wetland

Wetland

A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....

s; a number of these are classified as peat bogs

Bog

A bog, quagmire or mire is a wetland that accumulates acidic peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses or, in Arctic climates, lichens....

, with about 6,700 distinct areas. Characteristic species of the peat bogs include Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum (cotton-grass), sundew

Sundew

Drosera, commonly known as the sundews, comprise one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surface. The insects are used to supplement...

, cloudberry

Cloudberry

Rubus chamaemorus is a rhizomatous herb native to alpine and arctic tundra and boreal forest, producing amber-colored edible fruit similar to the raspberry or blackberry...

, cranberry

Cranberry

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...

 species, and Andromeda polifolia (bog-rosemary).

The peat bogs are sometimes subject to forest fires

Wildfire

A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...

 in the summer; about 280 such fires were noted between 1994 and 1999.

Riparian and lacustrine

Riparian

Riparian zone

A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the fifteen terrestrial biomes of the earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by...

 and lacustrine

Lake

A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...

 (aquatic) flora present in Lithuania include duckweed, horsetails, bullrushes

Typha

Typha is a genus of about eleven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. The genus has a largely Northern Hemisphere distribution, but is essentially cosmopolitan, being found in a variety of wetland habitats...

, sedge

Cyperaceae

Cyperaceae are a family of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants known as sedges, which superficially resemble grasses or rushes. The family is large, with some 5,500 species described in about 109 genera. These species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group...

s, and grasses

Poaceae

The Poaceae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants. Members of this family are commonly called grasses, although the term "grass" is also applied to plants that are not in the Poaceae lineage, including the rushes and sedges...

.

Crops

The principal crop plants in Lithuania are rye

Rye

Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...

, wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, oat

Oat

The common oat is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name . While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed...

s, barley

Barley

Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

, pea

Pea

A pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the pod fruit Pisum sativum. Each pod contains several peas. Peapods are botanically a fruit, since they contain seeds developed from the ovary of a flower. However, peas are considered to be a vegetable in cooking...

s, potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

es, sugar beet

Sugar beet

Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...

, and flax

Flax

Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...

. About 46% of the country is covered by cropland.

In addition to these major crops, various mushroom

Mushroom

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

 species are harvested; several species of berries are harvested, sometimes from the wild; and Common Hawthorn

Common Hawthorn

Crataegus monogyna, known as common hawthorn or single-seeded hawthorn, is a species of hawthorn native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia. It has been introduced in many other parts of the world where it is an invasive weed...

, Thyme

Thyme

Thyme is a culinary and medicinal herb of the genus Thymus.-History:Ancient Egyptians used thyme for embalming. The ancient Greeks used it in their baths and burnt it as incense in their temples, believing it was a source of courage...

, and Hypericum

Hypericum

Hypericum is a genus of about 400 species of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae ....

are important medicinal species.

Common weeds and invasive species

Crop weeds in Lithuania include Hordeum vulgare (spring barley), Capsella bursa-pastoris, Chenopodium album

Chenopodium album

Chenopodium album is a fast-growing weedy annual plant in the genus Chenopodium.Though cultivated in some regions, the plant is elsewhere considered a weed...

, Papaver rhoeas, Sinapis arvensis

Sinapis arvensis

Sinapis arvensis is an annual or winter annual plant of the genus Sinapis, belonging to the family Brassicaceae. It is commonly known as Field mustard, Wild mustard or charlock.-Etymology:...

, Spergula arvensis, and Viola arvensis

Viola arvensis

Viola arvensis is a species of violet known by the common name field pansy. It is native to Europe, western Asia, and North Africa, and it is known on other continents as an introduced species and a weed of disturbed and cultivated areas....

. Galinsoga parviflora

Galinsoga parviflora

Galinsoga parviflora is a herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae family. It has several common names including Guasca , Mielcilla , Galinsoga , gallant soldier ....

is one of the most troubling invasive species

Invasive species

"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....

.

Botanical research institutions

• Institute of Botany http://www.botanika.lt/depts_en.htm
• Lithuanian Institute of Horticulture http://www.lsdi.lt/lsdi_eng.htm
• Lithuanian Institute of Agriculture http://www.lzi.lt/
• Lithuanian Forest Research Institute http://www.mi.lt/about_institute.htm