Flowering and Fruiting Phenology of some Herbs, Shrubs and Undershrubs from Girnar Reserve forest, Gujarat, India

The present study was carried out on 26 species of 13 different botanical families in Girnar Reserve Forest near Junagadh, Gujarat, India, for their reproductive phenological events, viz. flowering and fruiting from August 2008 to August 2011. Flowering and fruiting phenology varied significantly (P < 0.01). Mean values of percentage of species in flowering event indicated highest peak in September followed by August; the highest peak for fruiting (83.3%) was observed in December followed by January (57.7%). Sida cordifolia L. showed highest pooled average of 179 days for flowering. However, Vernonia anthelmintica L. pooled the lowest average of 33.3 flowering days. Highest and lowest pooled average number of fruiting days were recorded for Cassia auriculata L. and Cassia occidentalis Linn. with 279.7 and 35.7 days/year respectively. On the basis of flowering, three species were identified with long flowering duration whereas six species were identified with short flowering duration. In the case of fruiting, five and two species were screened for long fruiting duration and short fruiting duration respectively. Average deviation in flowering among all species was ± 15.5 days from the first to second year of study; however, this was ± 15.4 days for the second to third year, resulting in overall 16.4 days of deviation for the entire study period. In the case of fruiting, the deviation was ± 20.7 and ± 17.3 days respectively, from the first to second year and second to third year, whereas the pooled deviation was 19 days in fruiting.