Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONS OF PLANT DIVERSITY OF KHATANA AND WAG HAI FORESTS OF NORTH WESTERN GHATS, SOUTH GUJARAT, INDIA

J. I. Nirmal Kumar, Rita N. Kumar, Amit N. Gohii and B. S. Hiran Kumar

Abstract

This paper deals with plant diversity of Khatana and Waghai forests situated on extreme north-east of Western Ghats of South Gujarat, India. These forests represent the tropical moist deciduous type. The preliminary data collected from the two study areas viz. Khatana and Waghai forests, showed the occurrence of total 41 families. Of which, the Khatana forest represented by 32 families with 54 species belonging to 5 I genera. While the Waghai forest comprised of 34 families with 82 species belonging to 76 genera. The family Leguminoseae was found to the most specious family in both the Khatana and Waghai forests with the number of species I 0 and I I respectively. Both the study areas showed Tectona grandis followed by Acacia catechu and Terminalia crenulata as a dominating tree species. However, remarkable differences are also noticed between these two study areas.