Floristic richness of Laguna San Rafael National Park. XI Región, Chile

Abstract

Laguna San Rafael National Park (Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael) has a long history of botanical exploration. It starts with Darwin, at 1834, who visited Cabo Tres Montes on the Península de Taitao; later, the area was visited by other botanists as Espinosa at 1929; Muñoz Pizarro and Schlegel at 1959 and Pisano, at 1988. The main objective of this paper is to integrate acumulated knowledge about vascular plant richness of the park, and to stablish the list of taxa that grow in the park. To increase information level about them a visit to the area was carried out by one of the authors (Teillier) at February 1999, the visit was sponsored by Darwin Proyect and Raleigh International, esults shows that known plant vascular richness reached 235 species. Best represented families are Poaceae, Cyperaceae, Asteraceae, Hymenophyllaceae and Juncaceae; most divers genera are Hymenophyllum (15 species), Carex and Juncus (8 species) and Gaultheria (incl. Pemettya) with 7 species. Genus/species relation varies between 1 (Gimnospermatophyta) and 2.47 (Pteridophyta). Dominant plant growth form is perennial herb with more than 70 % ; there are also, 17 species of trees, 16 evergreen and one, deciduos. 95,5% of the species are native and 8.5 %, aloctonous. Most of the alien species were found at the few disturbed sites that exists in the area. 21 endangered species grow at the park, most of them Pteridophyta only two species of endangered Spermatophyta were detected: Pilgerodendron uviferum (Cupressaceae) and Hebe salicifolia (Scophulariaceae). Needs in the future are related to new explorations to little or not known areas, preventing aloctonous flora invasions and vegetation cartography.