Natural plant diversity of three farms of Ankara University

Abstract

Natural flora of cultivated or agricultural areas are generally under estimated or accepted as weeds because they compete with agricultural plants and repress their growth. Ankara University has three research and application farms/stations especially for educational purposes. Between the agricultural patches at these farms there are small natural patches possessing important plant diversity but there is not any information about the natural flora of these farms. The aim of this study is to find out the natural plant diversity of these three farms. The field studies conducted between 2016-2018 and 927 specimens were collected totally, and the number of taxa and the farm that were collected from are as follows respectively; 118 taxa from Ayaş Horticulture Reasearch and Application Station, 64 taxa from both Kalecik Viticulture Research and Application Station, and Haymana Research and Application Farm. The families with the highest number of taxa are Asteraceae and Brassicaceae. 4 of these taxa are endemic. Most of the species are cosmopolitan with the ratio of 70% and the distribution of the rest of the taxa in phytogeographical regions are as follows; 15% Irano-Turanian, 8%Euxin and 7% Mediterranean.