Population and Community Characteristics of Rhododendron fortunei at Mount Tianjing of Guangdong Province

The species composition, structure characteristics and species diversity of Rhododendron fortunei communities at Mount Tianjing, Guangdong Province were studied by plot survey method. 701 standing trees with ≥2.5 cm DBH that belonging to 32 species, 23 genera, 14 families were recorded in 2000 m2 sampling plot. The R. fortunei communities were rich in plants from Theaceae, Lauraceae and Rosaceae families, whose dominant species were Illicium jiadifengpi，Rhododendron fortunei and Alniphyllum fortunei. Rhododendron fortunei was the subdominant species in the studied communities with stable population structure, where there were dominantly the small to medium sized trees with DBH between 75-175 cm, whereas there were few young seedlings indicating the poor natural regeneration. The natural regeneration of Rhododendron fortunei populations with appropriate man interference integrated with ex situ conservation was proposed in order to promote conservation and utilization of R. fortunei resource.