Studies On Flora Of Mt. Niushou Vascular Plants & Exploitation Of Resource Plants

Studies on Flora of Mt-Niushou Vascular Plants & Exploitation of Resource PlantsThe Forest Park of Mt.Niushou, located in the Jiangning District, the Southern Surburb Scenic Area of Nanjing, is composed of Mt.Niushou, MtZutang, MtJiangjun (or: General Mountain), East & West Tianmu Ridges, Mt. Yinlong and other mountains as well as hills with an area of about 50 square kilometers. It was ranked as the Provincial Forest Park of Jiangsu Province in 1995, and started to run business formally in April, 2002. The MtNiushou belongs to the south branch of the three western stretches of Ningzhen Mountain Range.Based on the 1368 samples collected in the several thorough investigations and surveys on its vegetations and vascular plants from July, 2001 to April, 2004, this paper discusses and analyzes the floristic composition of vascular plants in Mt. Niushou, floristic characteristics and the relations with its circumferential floras. The detailed results are as follows:I).Mt.Niushou Area has 618 species (including subspecies) of advanced plants belonging to 399 genera in!36 families, among which there are 15 species of ferns belonging to 12 genera in 10 families, 18 species of gymnospermae plants belonging to 14 genera in 6 families and 585 species of angiospermae plants belonging to 373 genera in 120 families. Dicotyledoneae plants have 499 species in 309 genera of 101 families and monocotyledoneae plants cover 86 species in 64 genera of 19 families. According to plants' characters, there are 238 species of xylophyta, 300 species of herb, and 80 species of climbing plant.II) There are 15 species of ferns belonging to 12 genera in 10 families in Mt.Niushou and the majorities vary from the North Temperate and Pantropcial Distribution Types, which indicates the ferns in this area have transitional characteristics from tropic to subtropic and temperate.III) Composition of families of seed plants. There are 126 families in Mt.Niushou flora, including 6 families of gymnospermae and 120 families of angiospermae, in which Compositae is the largest with 40 species in 30 families, and Graminae with 37 species in 29 families and Leguminosae with 39 species in 26 families are ranked as the second and the third largest ones.IV) Composition of genera. There are 387 genera in MtNiushou flora. Both the NorthTemperate and the Pan-tropical, with 70 genera, are ranked as the largest ones. The Cosmopolitan with 46 genera, East Asia with 38 genera and Old World Temperate with 30 genera are the following ones. Therefore, Mt. Niushou flora belongs to temperate and tropic type with occasional Mediterranean elements.V) Relation with its neighbouring regions. In terms of genera similarities, Mt. Niushou flora is more closely allied to Mt.Mufu, while the flora is more closely allied to Tieshan Temple in terms of species similarities. This is in consistent with the geographical distance between each flora.The field investigations show that its vegetation types can be classified into coniferous forest, broadleaved forest, shrub and grass patches and bamboo forest.In addition, the paper deals with the exploitation of the wild resource plants thoroughly. There are 155 species of 87 genera in 45 families can be used as ground-covering plants, 80 species of 61 genera in 35 families as street trees, 50 species of 37 genera in 23 families as hedgerow, 77 species of 46 genera in 23 families as climbing plants, and 140 species of 99 genera in 56 families as indoors ornamental plants. Thepaper also classifies the other economic plants as the Food, Fiber, Oil & Fragrance and Medicine Types.Finally, the paper goes into the strategies on the protection and management of the forest with secondary character, and advances some feasible proposals on its landscape creation.