Forests of the class Vaccinio-Piceetea in the Ufa Plateau

The two new associations of the feathermoss coni­ferous boreal forest, Equiseto scirpoidi—Piceetum obovatae (all. Piceion excelsae) and Zigadeno sibirici—Pinetum sylvestris (all. Dicrano-Pinion, cl. Vaccinio-Piceetea), with 2 subassociations and 5 variants are described from the water-protective zone of the Ufa Plateau (Republic Bashkortostan). The stands of the associations are restricted to steep slopes of the Ufa R. and the Pavlovsk Reservoir. The diagnoses and descriptions of all the new syntaxa are given. Floris­tically, the syntaxa are typical of the simultaneous occurrence of diagnostic species groups of the classes Vaccinio-Piceetea, Querco-Fagetea, and Brachypodio-Betuletea. This fact represents the ecotone effect action at a regional scale, as boreal, nemoral and steppe florogenetic complexes meet each other in the study area.