Introducing Flora, Life Forms, Geographical Distribution, and Identification of Potentially Medicinal Plants in Habitat of the genus Prangos (Case Study: Southern Part of Ardabil Province)

The present study was done in the southern part of Ardabil province in the habitats of Prangos genera. Plant samples in the region were collected during the growth season and detected based on plant taxonomical methods, and the medicinal species and the used tissues were identified. Based on IUCN classification system and Red data book of Iran, the conservative class of plant elements was investigated. Totally, 157 species belonging to 92 genus and 27 families were detected. The biggest families based on the number of species were: Poaceae with 31 species (19.74%), Asteraceae with 23 species (14.64%), Lamiaceae with 20 species (12.74%), Fabaceae with 18 species (11.46%), and Apiaceae with 10 species (6.37%). Regarding to life-form, 50.31% of species were Hemicriptophyte, 29.93% were Trophyte, 12.10% were Camephyte, 4.45% were geophyte, and 3.21% were Phanerophyte. The results indicated that most of species (64.96%) in the study area belonged to Irani-Torani region. Of the 157 identified species, 76 were medicinal belonging to 22 genus and the most important ones include: Lamiaceae with 16 species, Asteraceae with 13 species, Fabaceae with 9 species, and Apiaceae with 5 species. Investigating the rare and endangered species indicated that 14 species fell into less endangered (LR) category, 2 species were in the limited data (DD) category, and one species belonged to the vulnerable (VU) group.