Study on Weed Status in Mashhad Khorshid Park

To beautify and improve landscape of Mashhad metropolitan city, weed situation of Khorshid Park was studied. Thirty weed species belonging to 15 plants families formed the relatively diverse weed communities established on plains and hillsides of the park most of which belonged to Asteraceae, Poaceae and Fabaceae families, respectively. Sixteen of which (53%) were annuals, 37% were perennials and 10% were biennials. the richness of the plain weed community with 26 species was more than hillsides with 20 species. Weed community in hillside weed was highly uniform while uniformity of weed community in plains was less than hillsides showing signs of dominance at the beginning of the season. The Logarithmic distribution model of species showed the habitats are not relatively demolished, The similarity between weed communities of plains and hillsides was less than the similarity between seasonal weed communities of each habitat indicating more adaption of weeds to habitat conditions. The less similarity was obtained between spring weeds of both habitats while the most similarity was observed between summer weed communities. This survey proved that plains are threatened by noxious weed species such as Acroptilon repens L., Cynodon dactylon L., Hordeum murinum L., Bromus tectorum L. and Setaria viridis L. while hillsides menaced by Acroptilon repens L., Alhagi camelorum Fisch., Cirsium arvense and Xanthium strumarium L.