Investigation Flora and Life Form of Plants in Protected Region Sarigol (North Khorasan Province, Iran)

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sarigol with an area are 280 km² is located at Esfarayn (North khorasan province, Iran ) at the 57° 47� to 57° 76� Eastern latitude and 37° 55� to 37° 80� Northern longitude. The altitude average is 1997 M. This study was conducted from 2007 to 2009.

The climate is arid and semiarid. According to available data from the nearest climatic station in Asadly (Anonymous 1983- 2009), the average rain full is 332.5 mm. The mean maximum temperature of the warmest month (August) is 20.33°C and the mean minimum temperature of the coldest month (February) is -1.46.a part Plants of this area were collected in growing season from May to November, respectively. Plants are collected using normal random collecting method indifferent habitat types. Then they are transferred to herbarium of department of the environment of north Khorasan province. After providing herbarium labels were identified using available literature. Endemic species of Sarigol area was determined according to Red data book of Iran (Jalili and Jamzad, 1999). Life form of the determined by Raunkier (1934) system.

The chorology of collected plants are determined according their regions distribution.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We recorded 78 species belong to 66 genera and 25 families. In appendix of the paper checklist of all species collected in Sarigol protected area is shown with information about their life forms and chorological types. (Table 1). The families with the greatest number of species were Lamiaceae 10 species, Poaceae and Fabaceae species, Brassicaceae and Asteraceae 8 species, caryophyllaceae 5 species.

Table 1:	List of species, life form and phytocorya from Sarigol protected area

Fig. 1:	The pie chart of life form of species Sarigol

Fig. 2:	The pie chart of percentage of phytocorya of species Sarigol

9The life-form spectrum was shown that a high proportion hemicryptophytes 39.74 followed by therophytes 21.79%, chamaephytes 19.23% and cryptophytes 11.53% and phanerophytes 7.69% (Fig. 1).

In this region therophytes and hemicryptophytes are dominant. According to Mobayen (1996) the frequency of Therophyte plants is due to Mediterranean climate and the frequency of Hemicryptophyte is due to cold and temperate climate. On the whole, the frequency of the Hemicryptophyte and Therophyte among the plants of the area shows that the effect from two types of climate-Maditerranean and cold temperate affected them.

Therophyte adapted to the dryness of the region and shortage rainfall, because these plants spend vegetative period in the form of seed (Asri, 2003). Hemicryptophyte adapted to condition of area. They adapted and developed themselves to area by using different ways such as: reserving water, using ground water, reducing their water need by loosing their leaves and reduction of vegetative growth. Dominance of Hemicryptophyte and Therophyte clearly indicate the adaptation of these plants to aridity of area.

The chorology spectrum was shown: Irano-Turanian 75.64% Euro-Siberian 2.56% Mediterranian-Irano-Turanian 11.53% Irano- Turanian Euro-Siberian 5.12% Euro-Siberian Mediterranian-Irano-Turanian 1.28% cosmopolitian 3.84%. The most of plants chorotype with 75.64% is related to Irano-Toranian (Fig. 2). Similar results have also been reported that Iran is situated among three main phytochoria including Euro-Siberian (boreal), Irano-Turanian and Saharo-Sindian (White and Leonard, 1991) or Saharo-Arabian (Zohary, 1973; Akhani, 2007) and influenced by the introgression of Somalia-Masaei and Mediterranean species (Zohary, 1973; Takhtajan, 1986).

Among this 78 species in Sarigol region Malabia Isfahanica and Rubia florida are endemic of Iran.

This study was the first research in protected Sarigol region therefore we cannot able to compare with the pervious study.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Dr. M. Shahriary and gratefully from M. Joharchi and Dr. F. Memariani for identification some plant specimens. Also, thanks to Dr. M. Halimi, Z. Talebzadeh, A. Sobhani, F. Razi and Department of environment of north Khorasan for support to carry out this research.