The flora of the Western Tien Shan: Tajikistan part

Abstract

The study was devoted to documenting and describing the flora of the part of the western Tien Shan mountain range occurring in Tajikistan. Several field studies were carried out from 2016 to 2019, and more than 20,000 herbarium specimens were also investigated. We identified 547 plant species that were previously not indicated for this region; of these, 407 species were found in the Kurama Range and 140 species in the Mogoltau Mountains. The multivariate hierarchical analysis showed that the general level of floristic similarity among these widely separated areas was relatively low. Among the four floristic zones (the Southwest and Southeast of Kurama Range, Karamazar, and Mountains Mogoltau), the dominant taxa at the family level were Poaceae (78 species belonging to 35 genera), Asteraceae (43 genera and approximately 70 taxa), and Fabaceae (58 taxa belonging to 19 genera), and Brassicaceae (49 taxa in 36 genera). In our species inventory for the Kurama and Mogoltau Mts., 135 species met the criteria for rare species.

Keywords

• Hierarchical analysis
• Kurama Range
• Mogoltau Mountains
• Plant life-forms
• Western Tien Shan