The Secretariat of the project was active and enthusiastic, achieving substantial progress in mapping work during 1990. The screening of institutional herbaria for relevant orchid specimens was almost totally completed for Greece, Turkey and N Africa. Similarly, and in spite of the much increased number of new relevant publications, the screening of literature for distribution data is nearing completion.

In 1994 the Secretariat made increased endeavors to promote the protection laws for endemic orchids in the Mediterranean countries (see Eur. Orchid., vol. 26, 1994). For the same purpose ten threatened species of orchids were treated for the Red Data Book of the flora of Greece.

In 1995 the mandate of this Commission was renewed at the Sevilla Meeting. Data collection still needs to be completed for France, Lebanon, Caucasia, Spain and Syria. Computerization of the collected data for map generation has begun and approximately 1/5 of the information has already been processed.

This Commission is in its last term. Prof. Del Prete is in charge of having the text of the “Atlas of Mediterranean Orchids” reviewed from a scientific point of view. Hopefully, the chorological Atlas will soon be published and made available to OPTIMA members at a reduced price.