STUDIES ON FARGES FIR FORESTS OF SHENNONGJIA NATURE PRESERVE IN WEST HUBEI

Farges fir(Abies fargesii Franch,) is endemic to China. The forests dominated by it, Abies fargesii forests, belong to the climax of dark coniferous zone of vertical vegctation belts of Mt, Shennongjia, and are distributed over Schattenseite and valley above an elevation of 2300M. The pattern(or the spatial distribution)of its population is often clumped.The forests have their given floristic composition and specific community strueture, and contain 73 species of higher plant, The undergrowth species have some tolerances and strong asexual propagation ability, Moreover, their phytocoenological characteristics are very similar to the dark coniferous forests of different geographic position. These mentioned above have a direct hearing on the community environment which are produced by its strong constructiveness.At present, its regeneration is bad. Through the investigation and analysis it, the paper demonstrates that the factors affecting the regeneration are: (1) Crown density; (2) understory species; (3) bryophyte layer; (4) tree age and (5) animal activities etc. At the same time, the authors proffer some suggestions and measures of the protection and development for its resources, and expect to speed up natural regeneration of this plant by man (e.g.controlling the total density of Ⅳ and Ⅴ grade tree within 800 individuals/ha.; felling; health-cutting, collecting its strobilesetc.). In addition, if forest fire appears or clear-cutting is done, the community will carry out secondary succession and emerge secondary communities.