Check List 8(5): 951–962, 2012 © 2012 Check List and Authors Chec List ISSN 1809-127X (available at www.checklist.org.br) Journal of species lists and distribution Arborescent Angiosperms of Mundanthurai Range in PECIES S the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) of the OF southern Western Ghats, India ISTS L Paulraj Selva Singh Richard 1* and Selvaraj Abraham Muthukumar 2 1 Madras Christian College, Department of Botany, Chennai – 600 059, Tamil Nadu, India. 2 St. John’s College, Department of Botany, Tirunelveli, 627 002, Tamil Nadu, India.
[email protected] * Corresponding author. E-mail: Abstract: The present study was carried out to document the diversity of arborescent angiosperm taxa of Mundanthurai representingRange in the 175Kalakad-Mundanthurai genera in 65 families Tiger were Reserve recorded. (KMTR) The most of the speciose southern families Western are Euphorbiaceae Ghats in India. (27 During spp.), the Rubiaceae floristic survey carried out from January 2008 to December 2010, a total of 247 species and intraspecific taxa of trees and shrubs to this region which includes Agasthiyamalaia pauciflora, Elaeocarpus venustus, Garcinia travancorica, Gluta travancorica, (17Goniothalamus spp.), Myrtaceae rhynchantherus, (14 spp.), Lauraceae Homalium (13 travancoricum, spp.) and Annonaceae Homaium (11 jainii, spp.). OropheaOf the 247 uniflora, taxa, 27 Phlogacanthus species are endemic albiflorus, only Polyalthia shendurunii, Symplocos macrocarpa and Symplocos sessilis . This clearly signifies that this range is relevant to the conservation of the local flora. Introduction India for conserving global biological diversity and also The Western Ghats is one of the biodiversity hotspots declared as Regional Centre of Endemism in the Indian of the world (Myers et al.