Abstract
Effects of urbanization on the vegetation structure of the home gardens was investigated in West Java, Indonesia. The study sites were divided into the most, intermediate and the least urbanized sites. The number of ornamental plant species and their relative values were the highest in the most urbanized sites and the lowest in the least urbanized sites. The intermediate urbanized sites had intermediate values. Positive correlation was detected between the area of home gardens and the number of species in both ornamental and non-ornamental plants. For all the sites the number of non-ornamental plant species increased at a higher rate with the increase of the area than was the case for ornamental plant species. In all the study sites the ratio of the number of non-ornamental plant species to the number of ornamental plant species was higher in the back and side yards than front yards. The ratio of the number of ornamental plant species in the plant community layers was high in the lower layer and low in the higher layer. The high ratio of ornamental plant species depended on the large number of species in the lower layer in the most and intermediate urbanized sites, and the lack of the higher layer in the most urbanized sites.
