Geographic distribution of Astragalus in Iran

The geographic distribution of Astragalus (Fabaceae) in Iran was analyzed using a database of 7606 georeferencedobservations. Astragalus occurs in all provinces of Iran, but 88% ofthe observations are in five provinces including Tehran, West-Azerbaijan, Esfahan, Kordestan, and Khorasan-e Razavi.Most species are rare and narrowly endemic: Thelargest distance between two observations of the same species for 451 speciesis Astragalus, 269 selected cells are enough. High species richnessoccurs only in northern half of country especially in north-west of the Iran. Regions with high richness include Central-Alborz Mountain in north, North-Zagros Mountain in west, Mountain of north-west corner of Iran, and Khorasan-Kopet Dagh Mountain in North-East. The highestnumber of species in a grid cell (43 species) occurs in Avaj between Qazvin and Hamedan.Astragalus species occur between 30° N and 38° N. Astragalus species widely distributed in mountainous regions especially between 1000 and 3000 m altitude.