Floristic Composition of Climbing Plants in the Porto Alegre Botanical Garden, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract

The Porto Alegre Botanical Garden (JBPA) aims at the conservation of native flora in Rio Grande do Sul and represents one of the main green areas in the city. Through periodic collections, we made a floristic inventory of the naturally occurring climbers in JBPA. For each one of the species, the attributes growth form, climbing mechanism and dispersal syndrome were described. Identification keys for species based on vegetative characters are presented. We recorded 81 species, of which eight are exotic, belonging to 58 genera and 30 families. The three richest families were Apocynaceae, Asteraceae and Convolvulaceae with 11, nine and seven species, respectively. There are 42 herbaceous and 39 woody climbers, of which the most frequent climbing mechanism is the twiner and the dispersal syndrome is the anemochory. The climbing mechanism attribute is associated with growth form, while dispersal syndrome is not. This study highlights that the JBPA shelters 16% of the native climbers in the state, which emphasizes the importance of that small urban green area for the conservation of flora.