Floristic list, ecological features and biological spectrum of district Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Abstract A survey was carried out to evaluate the Phytosociological and ethnobotanical features of district Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The study was performed in different seasons of 2013–2015. The plant diversity comprised of 222 species belonging to 72 families. Among the total reported plant species, Poaceae (28 spp) was the dominant family, followed by Brassicaceae (15 spp.) and Papilionaceae (13 spp) while other families had less than 09 species each. Hydrophytes had 44 species (19.8%); xerophytes had the share of 157 species (70.72%), while 21 species (9.45%) were amphibious in nature. However, plant species possessing simple leaves were 170 (76.57%) species having compound leaves were 23 (10.36%). There were 24 species (10.81%) with dissected leaves and 05 species (2.25%) were aphyllous. Seasonal variation of species diversity indicated 173 species (77.92%) in spring, followed by summer with 120 species (54.5%), winter with 90 species (40.54%) and autumn with 84 species (37.83%). Meanwhile, the biological spectrum showed that therophytes were dominant life form and were represented by 110 species (50.1%), followed by microphanerophytes with 24 species (10.58%). Nanophylls were the leading leaf size spectra with 94 species (42.23%), followed by microphylls with 75 species (33.78%), while leptophyllous had 32 species (14.41%), mesophylls had 16 species (7.20%) and aphyllous were 05 species (2.25%).