Ecological and Ethnobotanical Characterisation of Gujarat Forests

Abstract

This study focused on the ecological and ethnobotanical characteristics of the natural forests, forest plantations, and forest orchards in the Gujarat state of India through an extensive field survey of trees, shrubs, and herbs over a span of four years. We inventoried 345 tree, 345 shrub, and 1,380 herb plots using a stratified random sampling design. In all, 706 species [trees (224), shrubs (68), and herbs (414)] were recorded. The highest number of species were noted in teak mixed dry deciduous forest (207), followed by scrub (132), thorn forest (91), grassland (78), teak mixed moist deciduous forest (51), forest plantations (34), degraded forest (30), Prosopis juliflora scrub (24), forest orchard (19), ravine thorn forest (16), Anogeissus pendula forest (8), riverain forest (8), Eucalyptus plantation (6), mangrove forest (1), and mangrove scrub (1). Fabaceae was observed to be the dominant family. Out of total species, twenty-nine (29) species were found to be rare (25), endangered (2), and threatened (2). Fabaceae was also the dominant family for rare, endangered, and threatened (RET) species. Six endemic species were recorded. The highest value of Shannon’s Index of plant diversity was noticed in teak mixed dry deciduous forest (3.14), followed by teak mixed moist deciduous forest (2.96), ravine thorn forest (2.08), forest plantations (1.97), thorn forest (1.64), riverine forest (1.41), and degraded forest (1.49). Two hundred fifty-two species, including trees (24), shrubs (101), herbs (123), climbers (3), and bamboo (1) found to be ethnobotanically important. Fabaceae happened to be the dominant family in terms of ethnobotanically important plants too.