TAXONOMY AND PHYTOGEOGRAPHY ANALYSIS OF MEDICINAL PLANTS AT THE AREA OF NATURE MONUMENT “ŠUMA KOŠUTNJAK”

Abstract

The study was carried out during two consecutive growing seasons (2020-2021) with the aim to record medicinal plants at the area of protected nature monument “Šuma Košutnjak”. Based on field research, together with numerous references, there was established presence of total of 147 medicinal plants at the whole researched locality. After the plants were determined, taxonomy and phytogeography analyses of collected material were performed. As for taxonomy, the most distributed families are Rosaceae (10.88 %) and Lamiaceae (9.52 %), while Fabaceae (5.44%) and Asteraceae (5.44%) are a bit less present. In the phytogeography analysis participation of different life forms and floral elements was determined. Among life forms the most common are hemicryptophytes (40.14%), then phanerophytes (24.49%) and therophytes (11.56%). The most dominant floral elements are Eurasian (20.41%), submideuropean (17.69%), mideuropean (12.24%) and submediterranean (11.56%). It should be noted that some species, according to destructive human effect, are very endangered due to low rate of their natural regeneration. Therefore it is needed to conduct protective measures in order to conserve gene pool of these species. If we want to obtain reliable information about the number and presence of medicinal plants at this area, it is necessary to perform detailed monitoring which would include several consecutive growing seasons.