Diversity of Vegetation in the Tail End of Eastern Ghats, Tiruchirappalli Forest Division, Tamil Nadu, India

Plants as the integrated part of an ecosystem and forms the basis of food either directly or indirectly to the fauna of the ecosystem. The diversity of plants actually reflects the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Hence, we have analysed the vegetation in terms of floral diversity of Tiruchirappalli forest division with a pioneer attempt to create baseline data on the diversity of plants. This paper comprehensively describes the diversity of floral wealth in Tiruchirapalli forest division. A total of 417 species comprising of 89 families have been recorded in our study during July to December 2013 in Tiruchirapalli forest division comprising the four ranges inclusive of Manapparai, Thuvarankuruchi, Thuraiyur and Tiruchirappalli. The predominant families being Euphorbiaceae, Poaceae, Cesalpinioideae and Mimosaceae and nearly 38 families each comprising of only one species distribution in the forest range. This distribution forms the baseline data on vegetation of the tail end region of the Eastern Ghats, which makes it more significant for further study on this landscape.