Astragalus sulcatus in southern Moravia, Czech Republic

In summer 2016 a small population of Astragalus sulcatus (Fabaceae) was discovered above the northern edge of the village of Újezd u Brna in southern Moravia (south-east Czech Republic) next to one of the two Kochia prostrata populations surviving in this country. We located three luxuriant plants at the site, each with several flowering stems, growing on the north-facing slope of the railway cut, in tall dense vegetation dominated by Brachypodium pinnatum and Inula salicina. A fourth plant was found at a distance of about 50 m on the edge of the railway. Based on the absence of earlier records from this site, which has been visited by generations of botanists, and on information on records of introduced plants in Vienna and Lower Austria, we assume that the species was accidentally introduced to the site by railway transport. The records of A. sulcatus from the vicinity of Břeclav, found mainly in the floras published by J. Dostál between 1948 and 1989, actually date back to the 1840s when a fi  nd from the area between the towns of Valtice and Břeclav was reported by J. C. Schlosser. As no specimens have been found for this and other remarkable records published by this author, we assume that this record was probably an identification mistake.