Flora, life form and chorological studies of riparian forest along Safa-Rud riverside in Ramsar forest between altitudinal ranges 350 to 2400 m a.s.l.

Riparian forests maintain diverse vegetation structure through the influence of various types, intensities, and frequencies of disturbance promoted by fluvial and geomorphic processes. These fluvial and geomorphic disturbances vary longitudinally from headwater streams to low-gradient alluvial rivers and result in different types of plant communities according to longitudinal location. The aim of this study was to investigate on the floristic composition, life forms and chorology of all plants along Safa-Rud riverside between 350-2400 m a.s.l in Ramsar forest. The final results of the studies on floras showed that 260 plant species belonged to 226 genera and 77 families. The Dicots with 204 taxa were the richest group of flora followed by monocots with 41 taxa, Pteridophytes with 13 taxa and Gymnospermae with 2 taxa. Dominant life forms include Hemicryptophyte (38.37 percent), Geophytes (23.55 percent), followed by phanerophytes (18.6 percent). From the chorological point of view, the largest proportion of the flora belongs to the Euro-Siberian elements (23.25 percent) followed by Pluriregional elements (21.7 percent), Euro-Sibirian/ Irano-Turanian (18.6 percent) and Euro-Sibirian/ Irano-Turanian/ Mediterranean (15.11 percent). Riparian Forest are severely degraded especially by human factors, thus a careful planning is needed to protect them.