RESEARCH INTO THE FLORA OF WILD PLANTS GROWING ON THE YARDS OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN TOKYO CITY

Abstract

This paper is a basic study for the purpose of developing botanical teaching materials concerned with familiar wild plants for elementary school science. The author has already shown some kinds of wild plants growing on elementary school yards in Hyogo and Niigata. In the present paper, the author reports a survey result of familiar wild plants which grow on elementary school yards in Tokyo. The research was conducted in the same way as that in Hyogo. Then, the author divided Tokyo City into twenty-one areas and picked out one school per area. Th e author carried out a field survey of wild plants three times in the spring, summer and autumn of 1985 there. The findings of this study are as follows:(1) The total of wild plant species found by the survey is 414 kinds on all of the twenty-one selected elementary school yards in Tokyo.(2) It was found that only 2 kinds of these wild plants were growing on all of these school yards.(3) It was found that 26 kinds of these plants were growing on 85% of these school yards.(4) When comparing the kinds of wild plants in Tokyo with those in Hyogo and Niigata, it became evident that 15 kinds of them were growing on more than 85% of the selected elementary school yards in Tokyo, Niigata and Hyogo. From the facts mentioned (2)-(3) above, it can be expected that 28 kinds of wild plants also grow up on the other elementary schools in Tokyo. For this reason, it is possible that many elementary schools in Tokyo use 28 kinds of these familiar wild plants for developing botanical teaching materials.