Floristic Study of Kaprada's Hilly forest in South Gujarat

Floristic studies help us to assess the plant wealth and its potentiality of any given area. Floristic studies also help us to understand the basic aspects of biology such as speciation, isolation, endemism and evolution. Flora of any area is not fixed up. It changes from time to time. Various ecological factors, mostly biotic, change the floristic components. The total number of species may be changed; dominant species may be replaced with other species; the floristic composition, i.e., family: genus: species ratio may be changed. Kaparada hilly forest is selected for the floristic studies. Whole area is rich in plant diversity. Our aim was to survey the area on basis of plant diversity. The area was previously explored only by Reddy (1987). After 1987 there is no information as to what is the present status and flora of the area. A total of 839 angiosperms belonging to 508 genera and 123 families have been collected from the region.