Floristic study of Shahbaz Mountain, Markazi province

The aim of this research was to identify the plant species, introducing the flora, determination of life forms, and geographical distribution of Shahbaz Mountain. Shahbaz Mountain, with 3420 m altitude (above sea level), is covers an area of 2255 hectares situated in Shazand city where the amount of annual precipitation is 380 mm and means annual temperature is 10.5 °C. Plant samples were collected from different parts of the area between 2700-3400 m during two growing seasons 2008-2009. The biological spectrum of the area was plotted by means of life forms results. The position of the area within Iran’s phytogeography classification was studied based on geographical distribution data and references. From 113 identified species, 90 dicotyledons and 23 monocotyledons were identified. These species belong to 23 families and 82 genera. The important families are Lamiaceae, Liliaceae, Asteraceae and Brassicaceae with 13.27%, 10.61%, 10.61% and 9.73%, respectively. Hemicryptophytes with 61 species (53.99%) were the most frequent life form. 92 species (81.42%) were endemics of Irano-Turanian region; 17 species of them were endemics of Iran.