Analysis of the Vegetation Characteristics at the Central Alborz Protected Area in the Nature Tourism Routes

Identifying and introducing the plants of a region is particularly and locally important, which includes the possibility of accessing specific plant species in a certain place and time, determining the potential and vegetative capabilities of the region, the possibility of increasing the density of the species of the region, the possibility of obtaining a new plant species or species, and identifying the destructive factors of the region’s plants. The most obvious classification to explain and describe the structure of plants is to specify the life form of each plant species in each different plant community. The purpose of this research is to investigate the flora, life form, geographical distribution and some characteristics of plants in plant communities. in order to analyze the vegetation status at the central Alborz protected area in Alborz province. In this research, 101 plots were collected and a total of 152 plant species were identified. The identified species belong to 103 genera from 30 families. Asteraceae family with 16 genera and 21 species includes the largest existing taxon in the study area, followed by Poaceae and Fabaceae families with 14 and 12 genera and 18 and 17 species, respectively. The genera Salvia with 8 species and Astragalus with 7 species had the highest species diversity among the identified genera. The dominant vegetative form among the identified species was herbaceous, and tree and shrub elements had the least identified form. According to the Raunkiaer system, hemicryptophyte plants with 51.3% (79 species), therophyte plants with 29% (44 species), cryptophyte plants with 9.9%, chamaephyte plants with 6.6%, and phanaerophyte plants with 2.6% were the most abundant biological forms in this range, respectively. Also, the highest abundance of plant species according to the vegetation area is Irano-Touranian (81 species) and Irano-Touranian/ Hyrcanian (33 species). In general, it can be concluded from this study that the plant community in this area is heterogeneous because all the identified species were in presence code class I with an abundance percentage of 0 to 20%. Also, considering that the study area has a relatively high flora, it can be used to evaluate the current situation and predict the future situation of the region.