A lucidophyllous forest on Mt. Kurino-dake, Kagoshima Prefecture was studied in order to clarify distributio nof the component species and species richness along the altitudina lgradient. We investigated 35 plots of 100m from 640m to 970m above sea level. As a result, we recognized nine species groups by the similarit yof each distributiona lpattern of frequency(%) of occurrence and mean coverage(%) of each species along the altitudinal gradient. Altitudinal distribution of species group 1 was restricted to 650m-700m. Species group 1 was divided into two sub-groups, the gap species such as Mallotus japonicus, Zanthoxylum ailanthoides, Aralia eleta, Clerodendron trichotomum etc. and the lucidophyllous species such as Gardneria nutans, Viburnum awabuki, Damnacanthus macrophyllus, Anodendron affine etc. preferring a warmer climate. It seemed that a change of vegetation from Castnopsis type forest to Cyclobalanopsis type forest occurred at this elevation. Species richness (number of species) per 100m2 ranged from 83 to 15 and decreased abruptly from low to high altitudes. High species richness at lower altitude depended on the appearance of many epiphytic orchids and ferns on the tree trunks.
