Numerous island-inhabiting species of predominantly herbaceous angiosperm genera are woody shrubs or trees. Such "insular woodiness" is strongly manifested in the genus Echium, in which the continental species of circummediterranean distribution are herbaceous, whereas endemic species of islands along the Atlantic coast of north Africa are woody perennial shrubs. The history of 37 Echium specie...

Four levels of vegetative competition wete used to quantify the growth of loblolly and shot-deaf pines (Pinus taeda L. and /? echinatu Mill.) in naturally regenerated, even-aged stands on the Upper Coastal Plain of southeastern Arkansas, USA. Treatments included: (I) no competition control, (2) woody competition control, (3) herbaceous competition control. and (4) total control of nonpine veget...

Widely-held, untested assumptions in many prairies are that high-intensity fires conducted during droughts will decrease native herbaceous species richness and lead to rapid invasions by alien species. We compared native and exotic herbaceous species richness and aboveground herbaceous biomass one year following the application of highintensity growing-season fires in Texas coastal prairie. Fir...

In this study the impact of production work on the skid roads that have been carried out for many years by manpower animal power or machinery in a beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) stand have been examined. For this purpose, herbaceous understory, forest floor and soil samples were collected from the undisturbed area and the skid road. Weight per unit area (kg ha(-1)), organic matter ratio and mo...

Peony (Paeonia spp.) is one of the most popular garden plants in temperate regions. They were introduced into cultivation in China hundreds of years ago, and have since been spread widely to many countries. According to morphological traits and life form, the genus is divided into tree and herbaceous peonies. Numerous cultivars of herbaceous peonies have been developed to satisfy demand for col...

Wells in grasslands are usually accompanied with increased traffic by humans and livestock. The purpose of this study was to detect whether plant community structure differs in spatial arrangement with different grazing gradients in the desert steppe of Mongolia. We found poor correlation between total coverage and distance-to-well in bigshrub and shrub-limited sites but strong correlation in t...