Phytosociology of an herbaceous sub shrub sandbank fragment in the Southern part of Santa Catarina State, Brazil

ABSTRACT The sandbank vegetation is a typical coastal ecosystem with a high ecological importance. The objective of this study was to describe the floristic and structural composition of an herbaceous sub shrub Restinga fragment located in Balneário Esplanada, municipality of Jaguaruna, in the south of Santa Catarina State. Twenty plots of 4m2 equally spaced four meters from each other were installed, totaling 80m2 of sampled area. The coverage of each species was estimated by the Causton scale. Ninety individuals of 13 botanical families, 21 genera and 21 species were sampled. The richest families were Asteracae, Poaceae, Boraginaceae and Solanaceae. The most predominant species were Panicum racemosum and Hydrocotyle bonariensis, with VI equal to 37.5 and 23.5, respectively. Within the community structure, there were seven height classes, the first strata being the richest, and the class 1 with the largest number of species. The diversity of Shannon and Pielou equability were 2.67 and 0.59, respectively.