Study on Flora and Life Form of Foetid Juniper Community in the Arasbaran Forest Reserved

Arasbaran region is one of the valuable habitats of the foetid juniper trees as the precious species in Iran. Therefore, the main object of this study was to identify the list of flora, life form and geographical distribution of plant species in the Juniperus foetidissima habitat in Arasbaran protected reserved region, East Azerbaijan province, Northwest of Iran. Sampling was done by the survey method. Identification, recording and preparing herbarium samples of plant species were done in the foetid juniper stands in Kaleybar County. A total number of 46 plant species were identified belong to 42 genera and 22 families. Asteraceae and Fabaceae families with 9 (19.57%) and 6 (13.04%) species had the most frequent species, respectively. The life form of the plant species in Raunkiaer's classification showed that Therophytes (44.4%) and Hemicrytophytes (42.2%) were the most frequent life forms and followed by Phanerophytes (6.7%), Cryptophytes (4.4%) and Geophytes (2.2%). The geographical distribution of plant species indicated that the Irano-Turanian floristic region was dominant (42.2%) in this study area.