Floristic Composition and Ecological Characteristics of Tehsil Samar Bagh District Lower Dir

Abstract

Usually identification of the flora all over the world is considered to be important and necessary because it plays a vital role to reserve National flora. The current study was conducted to explore and asses the floristic composition and ecological characteristics of Samar bagh District Dir lower along with their family, botanical name, habit, life form and leaf size classes. The flora of Tehsil Samar bagh comprises up of 120 species belonging 49 families. These 49 families consist of 6 gymnosperm species of family Pinaceae and Cuperassesceae, 8 monocot species of family Amaryllidaceae, Cyperaceae, Poaceae and 104 dicot species of 44 different families. As per the plant habit, there are 75 species of herb, 13 species of shrub and 32 species of tree. The leading and well-expressed family was Asteraceae attending 12 taxa, followed by Rosaceae with 10, Solanaceae with 9, papilionaceae with 7, Moraceae and Poaceae with 5, Fagaceae, Brassicaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Lamiaceae and Amaranthaceae contributing 4 plant species. The Life form and leaf size classes were managed by Raunkiaers system which displays that the headmost life form class was therophytes with 47 species, followed by nanophanerophytes with 21 species, chamaephytes with 13, and then by megaphanerophytes, hemicryptophytes, Geophyte and microphanerophytes. In leaf size classes leading class was microphyll representing 38 species followed by mesophyll with 37, nanophyll 24, macrophyll 9, leptophyll 7 and megaphyll with 5 species. Therophytes were observed dominant with high percentage, demonstrating that this area is a part of semi-arid zone of Khyber Pakhtunkhwah, Pakistan and indigenous people of this area thoroughly and extensively demolish and uproot the plants for burning purposes.