1996 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages 95-106
Vegetation on Mt. Kurino-dake, Kirishima Volcano Complex, South Kyushu was studied and classified into 3 types of forest ; Machilus thunbergii forest around 600 m a. s. 1., Distylium racemosum forest around 700 m and Abies firma forest above 800m to the summit area including such subseres as Prunus grayana and Illicium anisatum stands which is due to canopy damage given by repeated typhoons every year. Seedlings on the forest floor were observed for three years from April 1992 to April 1995 or four years from August 1991 to April 1995. In the Kurino-dake forests seedlings co-existed with their mother trees in the plot, but a few species of them did not. While in the Minamata IBP Research Area a large number of disseminules came from outside of the plot, and a few were supplied in the plot. This relationship shows that Minamata forest was in the process of diversification and in the process of maturation for Kurino-dake forests. In the M. thunbergii forest a number of Idesia polycarpa seedlings were produced under the damaged canopy by a typhoon, but they were almost extinct in one year after their bursting into germination. While seedlings of M. thunbergii, a canopy species, died quickly, too, a few numbers of them survived until next mast year. A mass production of seedlings was not observed in canopy species other than M. thunbergii. In the forest on the top of the mountain there were a number of seedlings of secondary species, and it is hard to find any signs that this forest will develop into a climax Abies firma forest so far as our short term observation shows.
