Avaliação quali-quantitativa da arborização do parque rio branco, Fortaleza-CE

Abstract

The Rio Branco Park is a landscape conservation area located in the Joaquim Távora neighborhood, in Fortaleza City, Ceará. In this green area, we find the source of Rio Branco Creek and varied fauna and flora. Given the scarcity of information on the floristic composition of the Rio Branco Park, we performed a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the afforestation of the mentioned urban space. 1856 individuals have been cataloged on quadrilateral area between Pontes Vieira Avenue, Visconde do Rio Branco Avenue, Castro Alves Street and Capitão Gustavo Street, distributed in 39 families and 113 species. More than half of inventoried individuals (67.44%) belong to the families Arecaceae (18.26%), Combrateceae (15.94%), Fabaceae (12.34%), Myrtaceae (7.92%), Anacardiaceae (7.81%) and Malvaceae (5.17%). The most abundant species were Terminalia catappa L. (15.94%), Cocos nucifera L. (9.69%), Mangifera indica L. (6.08%), Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels (5.92%), Leucaena leucocephala (Lam) de Wit (48.9%), Piper aduncumpi L. (3.55%). 67.07% of the existing specimens are exotic and 31.44% are native. Invasive alien species Terminalia catappa L.(296), Syzygium cumini (L.) Skeels (110), Leucaena leucocephala (Lam) de Wit (76), Azadirachta indica A. Juss. (38), Pithecellobium dulce (Roxb.) Benth (28) and Ficus sp. (18), represent 30.5% of the trees. Myracrodruon urundeuva Allemão and Caesalpinia echinata Lam. are species in danger of extinction present in the park. As for the phytosanitary aspects, the individuals were in good condition. On what regards to pruning practices, most arboreal specimens (90%) were not subjected to this cultural treatment. We concluded that the trees of the park are distributed into 39 families and 113 species with predominance of exotic specimens. Overall, species have in good phytosanitary shape. The park management should consider the removal of invasive alien species.