evidence: The territory of Tajikistan, with its phytogeographical complexity, is extremely diverse in terms of climate, landscape and habitat conditions. This has resulted in speciation of many altitudinal and ecological vicariants that occur in many cases in single, isolated valleys or mountain ridges (e.g. within Scutellaria or Asperula genera). According to the ten-volume study of the flora of the former Soviet Tajik Republic11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20 supplemented by the works of Zakirov21, Tzvelev22, Ikonnikov23 and more recently by, for example, Nobis et al.24,25 and Nowak & Nobis26, the vascular flora of the Pamir-Alai consists of ca. 4,300 species assigned to 116 families. Approximately 30% of vascular plants species known from Tajikistan are generally accepted as endemics27. [...] Nowak, A., Nowak, S. & Nobis, M. Phytogeography and vegetation in the Pamir-Alai Mountains (Middle Asia: Tajikistan) in Plant biogeography and vegetation of high mountains of Central and South-West Asia (ed. Noroozi, J.) (Springer Verlag, 2020). [...] Breu, T. & Hurni, H. The Tajik Pamirs: Challenges of sustainable development in an isolated mountain region. (Geographica Bernensia and Centre for Development and Environment, 2003).