Floristic inventory of woody plants in a tropical montane (shola) forest in the Palni hills of the Western Ghats, India.

摘要

Woody plants (>=1 cm dbh) were inventoried in December 2004 in a tropical montane (shola) forest in the Kukkal Reserve Forest, Palni hills, India. Twelve randomly placed 30x30 m plots were used for sampling the vegetation. The total area sampled was 1.08 ha. All woody stems were permanently tagged and dbh at 1.3 m above ground level was recorded. Identifications were made using floras and confirmed at herbaria. The sampling adequately captured the species diversity in the shola. The species abundance distribution did not differ significantly from log normal indicative of a diverse tropical community. A total of 2279 stems belonging to 83 species, 68 genera and 40 families were inventoried. Of these, 16 species from 12 genera and 12 families were lianas. About 30% of the species were endemic to the Western Ghats. Species diversity as measured by Fisher's alpha index was 13.15 for trees and 4.54 for lianas, and basal area was 62 m2 ha-1 for trees and 0.58 m2 ha-1 for lianas. The most abundant species (>=1 cm dbh) was Psychotria nilgiriensis var. astephana (Rubiaceae), which accounted for 12% of the stems sampled. Xantolis tomentosa var. elengioides had the largest basal area. Lauraceae was the dominant family accounting for 20% of the stems. Montane evergreen forests, which are unique to the higher elevations of the Western Ghats, should be conserved on a priority basis.