Floristic and phytogeography of the deciduous vegetation in "Estação Ecológica de Aiuaba", Ceará State, in the Northeast of Brazil

Abstract

The ‘scrubland’ biome was recently recognized as a reserve of UNESCO’s biosphere, one of the 37 large natural regions on Earth. Nonetheless, little is known concerning its vegetation and flora and the distribution patterns of ‘scrubland’ species. With the effort to change this reality, the floristic composition of "Estação Ecológica de Aiuaba", a conservation unit with a biological importance in Ceará was studied. One took a walk at random monthly in the area of study from October in 2003 to February in 2005. Several materials were collected such as herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, trees, epiphytes, hemiparasites and lianas. The botanic collection can be found in the Herbarium SPF, EAC, HUVA, IPA and K. In the floristic research 138 specimens were collected and they belong to 45 families, 113 genres and 160 species. From this amount, three taxons are being proposed as new species for the scientific domains. The richest families in number of species were Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Malvaceae, Bignoniaceae and Convolvulaceae, which corresponded to 53.75% of all species. The flora of the area is connected to other areas of scrub and a non-thorn deciduous land. However, the deciduous nature of the vegetation, the biggest floristic similarity to the other scrub areas and the presence of Cactaceae and Bromeliaceae, which are rare in the non-thorn deciduous lands, denote t

hat the scrubland represents the predominant vegetal formation in "Estação Ecológica de Aiuaba".