XVI International Botanical Congess

An ecological study on the grasslands of ENP was conducted during 1992-1997. We used relev e= (Zurich-Montpellier phytosociologica) approach to quantify the vegetation across various landscape units within the park. The entire park was divided into different landscape units based on physiognomic features. TWINSPAN identified fifteen associations with two dominant species: Chrysopogon zeylanicus and Sehima nervosum. However, small landscape units such as bogs were dominated by Isachne setosa, cattle grazed (CG) area by Cymbopogon flexuosus and scraped are by Ischaemum indicum. Broadly speaking, there were four communities at mean eigen value 0.30. Of these, most associations were had C. zeylanicus and S. nervosum. The diversity indices (H=) ranged from 1.38 in the CG to 2.90 in the shola-grassland edge (SE). Species richness (R) was highest (3.42) in SE.