Contribución al conocimiento de la flora de la cuenca de la Quebrada de Ramón, Región Metropolitana, Chile

Abstract

The Quebrada de Ramón is located in the Región Metropolitana of Chile. Climate type is mediterranean, semi-arid, The flora of this region, has an important number of chilean, and chilean mediterranean endemics and a high richness. Until present various authors has described only partially the flora of the basin. That makes interesting to carry on more specifics studies. The aim of this paper was to present a checklist of the flora, to study floristic richness and composition, and to evaluate the presence and the distribution of endemics, threatened and alien species. The flora of the basin has at least, 300 species, belonging to 193 genera and 71 families, better represented families are Asteraceae (Compositae), Poaceae (Gramineae), and Fabaceae (Papilionaceae), 245 species (83%) of the vascular flora are native, 124 (41,3%) endemic to Chile, and 55 (18, 1 %) alien. Predominant Raunkiaer's forms of life were terophyta (31 %), hemicriptophyta (28%) and nanofanerophyta ( 15%). Our results suggest that Quebrada de Ramón must be protected, with the purpose to preserve flora, fauna, landscape and hydric resources, in order to avoid an increasing anthropogenic disturbance due to tires and mans activities as road construction and urbanization.