Ligneous flora diversity of a submountain forest

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Ligneous flora diversity of a submountain forest of West Cameroon: The Kouoghap sacral forest of the village Batoufam

 

Emmanuel NOUMI

 

Laboratory of plant Biology, Higher Teachers’ Training College of the University of Yaoundé I, P. O. Box 47 Yaoundé, Cameroun. E-mail: noumikap@yahoo.fr .

 

Accepted 21 September, 2011

 

Abstract

Batoufam is a village of the high lands of the West of Cameroon, situated about 20 km to the South of Bafoussam (5°14' to 5°18' N latitude and 10°20' to 10°31' E longitude), inside the Batoufam-Bayangam caldeira of the volcanic massif of Bangou. The sacred forest Kouoghap (SF) is located on the south-eastern side of this caldeira at 1,450 to 1,550 m elevation. It is estimated today at 47 ha. The 2.5 ha sampling (10 plots of 25 x 100 m) includes all the trees of a diameter at breast height (DBH) of 10 cm or more. 3,173 trees and lianas belonging to 95 species and 31 families, with a total basal area of 90.37 m²/ha, were recorded. Most of the trees were between 10 to 20 m high, with a diameter of 10 to 20 cm. Some of them reach 25 to 30 m in height and 120 cm in diameter. The 6 most important families in terms of diversity, density and dominance are Meliaceae, Leguminosae, Moraceae, Sapotaceae, Rubiaceae and Bignoniaceae. Together they account for 57.31% of the total family importance values (FIV). In this forest, a few of the common species dominate: 11.57% of all species account for 52.34% of the total importance value index (IVI). Only 9.4% of species are represented by one individual. The species with higher IVI are: Syncepalum cerasiferum, Tricalysia macrophylla, Trilepisium madagascariense, Markhamia tomentosa, Funtumia africana, Vitex grandifolia, Lovoa trichilioides, Polyscias fulva, Dracaena arborea, Trichilia rubescens and Carapa grandiflora. The forest appears typical of Guinean lowland rainforest in general on one hand, and the altitude forests on the other hand. In this last option, it is worth noting that 4.2% of species are orophytes that occur widely in the austral and pantropical area, and 1.05% in the austral and subantartic area. These results permit SF Kouoghap to be placed in the archipelago Afro-Cameroonian highlander, according to the phytogeographic classification of White. The specific richness of the studied forest is lower than those of the equatorial rainforests.

 

Key words: Plant diversity, submountain forest, Batoufam, Highlands, West Cameroon.

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