Vascular Plant of Cemetery in Miaoli County

Miaoli County features a diverse topography, including coastal areas, hills, plateaus, and mountainous regions, with hills being the most prominent feature. The western hills serve as the extension of the southern boundary of the Taoyuan and Hsinchu plateaus, with the terrain gradually sloping from east to west. The county’s major rivers originate in the eastern mountains and eventually flow westward into the Taiwan Strait. These rivers, arranged from north to south, include Zhonggang Creek, Houlong Creek, Xihu Creek, and Daan Creek. They traverse various terrains, creating a complex landscape and diverse ecosystems that provide suitable habitats for flora and fauna (Zeng, 2012). This study focuses on the cemeteries in Miaoli County, which are primarily located in plains and hilly areas, with altitudes ranging from 3 to 643 meters above sea level. The region has a subtropical monsoon climate, with an average annual temperature of 20 to 22°C and an annual rainfall of approximately 1600 millimeters.

These climatic conditions are conducive to the growth and reproduction of plant communities. Due to cultural practices, cemetery areas are generally less disturbed by human activities, making them potential refuges for many native threatened plants. Previous surveys of botanical ecological resources in Miaoli County lacked accurate temporal and spatial distribution information, especially concerning the distribution and conservation of threatened plant species, necessitating comprehensive investigation. In order to understand the ecological vegetation status of these areas, a survey of plants in cemeteries was initiated from May 20, 2017, to December 26, 2020. Threatened plants were the main survey targets, and the cross-line survey method was adopted. Since the cemetery is very small, there were trails in the cemetery area, so we walked in to investigate. We took photos and uploaded them to the Taiwan Vascular Plant Survey and Phenology Observation (https://plant.tbn.org.tw/). Through this The platform system records the time, location, plant list and phenology, and reviews it every season to collect the growth and phenology status of plants in different seasons. Because the photos are uploaded, common plants or plants with no flowers or fruits will be ignored, and this is an opportunistic observation survey. Resulting in a total of 3025 records of 591 species from 121 families. The Poales was the order with the highest accumulated number of occurrences(556) , followed by the Fabales(537) , Asterales(346) , Rosales(187) and Malpighiales(184) (Table1). Among them included 9 Nationally Critically Endangered (NCR) species, 19 Nationally Endangered (NEN) species, 13 Nationally vulnerable (NVU) species, 9 Nationally near threatened (NNT) species, and 9 data deficient (DD) species. Besides rare plants, many alien species were also identified, with high frequency and extensive coverage, such as Bidens pilosa var. radiata, Mikania micrantha, Ageratum houstonianum, Praxelis clematidea and Megathyrsus maximus.