| Wutai Mountain is located in the northeast part of Xinzhou City in Shanxi Province. Its highest peak, with an altitude of 3,061 meters, is also the highest peak of North China and therefore nicknamed "the roof of northern China".Based on the data from the field surveys, the quantitative classification and the ordination of the plant communities related to periglacial landforms on Mt. Wutai were studied by using Two-Way Indicators Species Analysis (TWINSPAN) and Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA). The communities were classified into 13 associations by TWINSPAN. The result indicated that the 13 associations were important ecological landscapes elements of different periglacial landforms, and there were close relationships between ecological features of associations and their habitats. The result of DCA ordination showed the relationship between the distribution pattern of plant communities and soil, humidity and energy. And the distribution pattern of dominant species on different types of periglacial landforms dominated the distribution pattern of plant group types, reflecting the changing trend of community types and species distribution with environmental gradient.The different periglacial landform plant community types' composition multiplicity has the obvious difference. According to distribution in the different periglacial landform, thirteen group clumps were divided into the common group clumps and the exclusive group clumps. In addition, richness indexes,species diversity indexes and evenness indexes were used to analysis seven periglacial landforms plant community comprehensive diversity index of Wutai mountains. The results showed that species diversity indexes of seven periglacial landforms plant communities in Wutai mountains were turf≥blockfield, stone circle>cryoplanation>stone stream>tor>solifluction lobe. The main factors that impacted on periglacial landforms community species diversity index of Wutai mountains were altitude, thiekness of soil layer, water and heat.The niche breadth and niche overlapping of dominant populations of Periglacial Landform on Wutai Mountain were studied by using Shannon-Wiener index and Portraits's methods, and the relationship between niche breadth and overlap and the ability of those populations to adapt to periglacial landform environment were also analyzed. The results showed that the niche breadths of Carex spp., Potentilla frafarioides, Kobresia myosuroides, Polygonum viviparnm, Festuca rubra were bigger than that of the others because these five species have extensive adaptation to periglacial landscape environment and resources could be fully used. The niche breadths of K. pygmaea, Poa annua, Potentilla spp., Viola rtundifolia, Potentilla glabra were the smallest because these five species had stricter selectivity to resources and some specific ecological factors, and they could survive only in some specific communities. The Petraitis niche overlap index indicated that there were 246 species counterparts having niche overlaps in the total 420, which constituted by the 21 dominant population, accounting for 58.57% of the entire species. The niche overlap of only 8 species are greater than 0.5, showed that plant community niche overlap is not obvious.Compared with mountain communities at the same latitude in China, the vegetation types of Mt. Wutai on periglacial landforms were the most abundant. Moreover, they were unique in the plant species composition of communities. The in-depth studies on the relationship between the regional communities distribution patterns and periglacial landforms environment not only contributed to reasonable protection and development of periglacial landforms, but also was of practical significance in protection of natural landscape and ecological security of Mt. Wutai, which is one of the world cultural heritage sites.
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