326 



CAIN, DE OLIVEIRA CASTRO, PIRES, AND DA SILVA 



Table 25. Summary table of life-form classes, comparing the Brazilian rain-forest 

 results with Raunkiaer's normal spectrum and various phytoclimatic types 



Type 



Ph Ch H Cr(G) Th 



Author 



Raunkiaer's normal spectrum .... 46 



Brazilian rain-forest spectra: 



Mucambo (Equatorial) 95 



Caioba (Coastal Temp.) 87 



Alto do Palmital (Temp.) 80 



Horto Botanico (Temp.) 70 



Selected phytoclimates: 



Rain forest, Queensland 96 



Subtropical evergreen, India 63 



Temperate deciduous, Connecticut IS 



Mediterranean, Crete 9 



Desert, Transcaspian 11 



Steppe, Colorado 



Tundra, Spitzbergen 1 



26 



13 Raunkiaer (1934) 



flora, but is useful as a base line for comparisons), lowland equatorial rain 

 forest (Mucambo) is seen to be exceedingly high in phanerophytes. It is so 

 high, in fact, that all other classes are of necessity negligible. The Mucambo 

 situation is not unique, but is typical for the formation in low equatorial 

 regions. As is well known, in Brazil the rain-forest formation extends far 

 southward along the Serra do Mar. Our temperate station at Caioba, about 

 26° S. Lat., is still strongly represented in the phanerophytic class (87 per 

 cent), but this figure contains ?>Z per cent lianas and epiphytes in contrast to 

 21 per cent for Mucambo. Still farther south (32° S. Lat.), in fact at southern 

 limits of the formation where it is found as gallery forest in a grassland re- 

 gion, the percentage of phanerophytes is 70 at Horto Botanico, including 

 18.6 per cent of lianas and epiphytes. This is still 24 per cent above that 

 class in the normal spectrum, although a regional flora, including the grass- 

 lands and coastal vegetation of praia and restinga, would give quite different 

 percentages. The interior, southwestern extension of rain forest, at Iguagu 

 (Alto do Palmital), lies beyond the Araucaria forest zone, which itself has a 

 rain-forest understory. Both of these types are properly classified as temperate 

 rain forest. Here we found 80 per cent phanerophytes, including 24 per cent 

 lianas and epiphytes. 



There is considerable difficulty in the classification of hemicryptophytes 

 and geophytes in rain forest. This arises from the fact that many plants. 



