Forum Acta Plantarum

Dear Participants to the XV OPTIMA Meeting,

this to inform you that the XV OPTIMA meeting, held in Montpellier form 6 to 11 June, has been a successful meeting both from the scientific and and interpersonal points of view. 202 participants from 26 countries attended the meeting that included 18 symposia with 87 oral presentations, 2 workshops and an animated poster session with 74 posters displayed.
The website of the meeting is still available at http://www.optima2016.org/en/welcome-to-montpellier/
The book of abstracts is available at http://www.optima-bot.org/meetings/XVAbstracts.pdf

The OPTIMA commissions met the 5th June and during the OPTIMA meeting, their activities are reported at http://www.optima-bot.org/activities/default.htm

The closing ceremony included the award of the Optima medals: the gold medal of OPTIMA, awarded to a botanist who, by his or her activity, is considered to have made an outstanding contribution to the phytotaxonomy of the Mediterranean area, was given to prof. Francesco M. Raimondo from Palermo. The silver medals, awarded to the authors of the best papers or books on the phytotaxonomy of the Mediterranean area that were published in the preceding three-year period, were assigned to: Jean-Marc TISON, Philippe JAUZEIN & Henri MICHAUD – 2014 - Flore de la France méditerranéenne continentale; Mohamed FENNANE, Mohammed IBN TATTOU & Jalal EL-OUALIDI (ed.) – 2014 - Flore pratique du Maroc, 3; Enio NARDI – 2015 - Il genere Aquilegia L. (Ranunculaceae) in Italia.
The complete list of OPTIMA medals awards is available at: http://www.optima-bot.org/awards/default.htm

The XVI OPTIMA meeting will be held in the fist week of October 2019 in Athens thanks to the availability of prof. Pepy Bareka of the Agricultural University of Athens.

Best Wishes,
Gianniantonio Domina