The cerrado vegetation in São Paulo State is restricted to a few remnants which non-arboreal flora has rarely been studied. The present study aimed at characterizing the non-arboreal phanerogamic flora occurring in distinct "cerrado" vegetation types (wet camp, cerrado sensu stricto, woodland cerrado and riparian forest) at Assis Ecological Station (22°33'65" to 22°36'68" S and 50°22'29" to 50°23'00" W), Assis municipality, São Paulo State, Brazil, and, by comparison with other "cerrado" sites in the state, verifying possible occurrence of endemic or rare species. A floristic survey was carried out and a total of 301 species, 199 genera and 61 families of non-arboreal phanerogamic plants were found. The richest families for the studied life forms in the area were: Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Bignoniaceae and Poaceae. Richness in the physiognomies, in decreasing order, was 146 species in the cerrado sensu stricto (48.8%), 48 species in the woodland cerrado (15.9%), 47 in the wet camp (15.6%), and, at last, the riparian forest, with 15 species (5.0%). Compared to other cerrado areas, the diversity of the local non-arboreal flora is high. There is, also, a high number of species (102 or 34%) exclusive from the studied area. High proportions of non-arboreal species occurring in a single locality have been also observed in other studies, indicating that either endemism can be higher among these life-forms than among arboreal species or inventory methods were not adequate to survey the total richness of the studied areas. Conservation strategies and botanical inventories must especially consider the non-arboreal flora, since arboreal species are both more widespread and proportionally better known.
cerrado vegetation; conservation; diversity; floristic inventory
